about
nine o’clock
It would be a dreadful place for an idle man : but we are all so busy that we have hardly time to think whether there 's a view or not . Day and night we are at work ; and yet the three months have been very pleasant ones to look back upon . I 'll give you an idea of what a day 's work is like . We breakfast about nine o'clock , and immediately afterwards the morning patients begin to drop in . Many of them are very poor people , belonging to the colliery clubs , the principle of which is , that the members pay a little over a halfpenny a week all the year round , well or ill , in return for which they get medicine and attendance free . `` Not much of a catch for the doctors , '' you would say , but it is astonishing what competition there is among them to get the appointment . You see it is a certainty for one thing , and it leads indirectly to other little extras .