seven o'clock
Then he seemed to be aware of yielding to an unusual outburst and picking up his chair he sat down . There were only a few students in the shop . Walter had gone out an hour before . It was almost seven o'clock and the foreman was just going out of his little office room at the other end of Bauer 's section of benches . Bauer sat there until the foreman had gone out and then he picked up the two pieces of the letter and with a flush of colour on his face as unusual as his recent outburst of feeling , he slowly read . The handwriting was very peculiar even for German script and the tearing of the letter in two made its intelligent perusal doubly difficult . When he reached the end he hesitated and at last put the two pieces of the letter into its envelope and the envelope in his pocket and then he sat staring at the stuff on his bench with a hard look in which scorn and shame and perplexity were mingled .