about eight o'clock
To prevent mistakes , he was shown over the route the previous evening , and supplied at about daylight with the usual number of subscribers ' copies . He returned , after an hour , in good spirits , and without the papers . He had delivered them all , he said . Unfortunately for Wan Lee , at about eight o'clock , indignant subscribers began to arrive at the office . They had received their copies ; but how ? In the form of hard-pressed cannon-balls , delivered by a single shot , and a mere tour de force , through the glass of bedroom-windows . They had received them full in the face , like a base ball , if they happened to be up and stirring ; they had received them in quarter-sheets , tucked in at separate windows ; they had found them in the chimney , pinned against the door , shot through attic-windows , delivered in long slips through convenient keyholes , stuffed into ventilators , and occupying the same can with the morning 's milk .