about five o'clock
What gentleman could stand this air , think you , for a fortnight ? '' I was glad enough to get out of the hot , fetid atmosphere in five minutes , and saw that there was no brick of Ernest 's prison to be loosened by going and working among tailors in a workshop . Mr Larkins wound up by saying that even if my _ protege _ were a much better workman than he probably was , no master would give him employment , for fear of creating a bother among the men . I left , feeling that I ought to have thought of all this myself , and was more than ever perplexed as to whether I had not better let my young friend have a few thousand pounds and send him out to the colonies , when , on my return home at about five o'clock , I found him waiting for me , radiant , and declaring that he had found all he wanted . It seems he had been patrolling the streets for the last three or four nights -- I suppose in search of something to do -- at any rate knowing better what he wanted to get than how to get it . Nevertheless , what he wanted was in reality so easily to be found that it took a highly educated scholar like himself to be unable to find it . But , however this may be , he had been scared , and now saw lions where there were none , and was shocked and frightened , and night after night his courage had failed him and he had returned to his lodgings in Laystall Street without accomplishing his errand .