5 P.M.
Yorkville sprang up , a rubber-stamped neighborhood , of which each street was a brownstone duplicate of the next . The rocky hill became valuable and went for twenty thousand dollars , of which three thousand had to be deducted for the mortgage . Then Joe graduated from high school , and , lusting for life , took a clerk 's job with one of the big express companies . He held this for two years , and learned an interesting fact -- namely , that a clerk 's life began at 5 P.M. and ended at 8.30 A.M. . In between the clerk was a dead but skilled machine that did the work of a child . He learned , besides , that advancement was slow and only for a few , and he saw these few , men past middle life , still underlings . A man of forty-five with a salary of three thousand was doing remarkably well , and , as a rule , he was a dried-up , negative , timid creature .