About twenty minutes after two
And suddenly Michael laughed . `` Well , Pitman , '' said he , `` have all the truck ready in the studio . I 'll go . '' About twenty minutes after two , on this eventful day , the vast and gloomy shed of Waterloo lay , like the temple of a dead religion , silent and deserted . Here and there at one of the platforms , a train lay becalmed ; here and there a wandering footfall echoed ; the cab-horses outside stamped with startling reverberations on the stones ; or from the neighbouring wilderness of railway an engine snorted forth a whistle . The main-line departure platform slumbered like the rest ; the booking-hutches closed ; the backs of Mr. Haggard 's novels , with which upon a weekday the bookstall shines emblazoned , discreetly hidden behind dingy shutters ; the rare officials , undisguisedly somnambulant ; and the customary loiterers , even to the middle-aged woman with the ulster and the handbag , fled to more congenial scenes . As in the inmost dells of some small tropic island the throbbing of the ocean lingers , so here a faint pervading hum and trepidation told in every corner of surrounding London .