4 A.M.
And he found himself obliged not merely to buy large books of account , but to fill them with figures ; and to do addition sums from page to page ; and to fill up hundreds of cards ; and to write out lists of shops , and to have long interviews with printers whose proofs made him dream of lunatic asylums ; and to reckon innumerable piles of small coins ; and to assist his small office-boy in the great task of licking envelopes and stamps . Moreover , he was worried by shopkeepers ; every shopkeeper in the district now wanted to allow him twopence in the shilling on the purchases of club members . And he had to collect all the subscriptions , in addition to his rents ; and also to make personal preliminary inquiries as to the reputation of intending members . If he could have risen every day at 4 A.M. and stayed up working every night till 4 A.M. he might have got through most of the labour . He did , as a fact , come very near to this ideal . So near that one morning his mother said to him , at her driest : `` I suppose I may as well sell your bedstead . Denry ? ''