hours from two to three
But it seems that the journeying of my jade was near its ending . For upon this morning , fortune threw me into the way of a fellow who had been in my class at the University , who was to be my _ deus ex machina _ . No two persons in the world could have been more dissimilar than `` Jack '' Ballard and I , and yet , perhaps for that reason , there had always been a kind of affinity between us . He was one of the wealthiest men in my class and was now , as he gleefully informed me , busily engaged clipping coupons in his father 's office , `` with office hours from two to three some Thursdays . '' Of course , that was his idea of a joke , for it seems quite obvious that a person who gave so little time to his business had better have kept no hours at all . He greeted me warmly and led me into his club , which happened to be near by , where over the lunch table he finally succeeded in eliciting the fact that I was down to my last dollar with prospects far from encouraging . `` Good old Pope ! ''