The dinner hour was half-past one.

When Joe and I got home, we found the table laid, and Mrs.Joe dressed, and the dinner dressing, and the front door unlocked (it never was at any other time) for the company to enter by, and everything most splendid.

And still, not a word of the robbery.
The time came, without bringing with it any relief to my feelings, and the company came.

Mr.Wopsle, united to a Roman nose and a large shining bald forehead, had a deep voice which he was uncommonly proud of; indeed it was understood among his acquaintance that if you could only give him his head, he would read the clergyman into fits; he himself confessed that if the Church was "thrown open," meaning to competition, he would not despair of making his mark in it.

The Church not being "thrown open," he was, as I have said, our clerk.