half past one
After these delays , with full materials , I sprang to work -- read , read , read ; wonder , wonder , wonder ; guess , guess , guess ; scratch , scratch , scratch ; and scribble , scribble , scribble , make the only transcript I can give of the operations which followed . At first , several of the other gentlemen in the room sat around me ; but soon Mr. C. , having settled the deaths and marriages , and the police and municipal reporters immediately after him , screwed out their lamps and went home ; then the editor himself , then the legislative reporters , then the commercial editors , then the ship-news conductor , and left me alone . I envied them that they got through so much earlier than usual , but scratched on , only interrupted by the compositors coming in for the pages of my copy as I finished them ; and finally , having made my last translation from the last _ Boletin Extraordinario _ , sprang up , shouting , `` Now for Mrs. P. 's , '' and looked at my watch . It was half past one ! -LSB- 7 -RSB- I thought of course it had stopped , -- no ; and my last manuscript page was numbered twenty-eight ! Had I been writing there five hours ? Yes !