Job Interview (D6)

"Come in," welcomed the interviewer.

The nervous interviewee, Tom, entered the the office, glancing back at the remaining interviewees sitting stiffly on their chairs.

"My name is Patrick," said the interviewer as he shut the door. Patrick was an elderly man with a slight stoop and a squinty eye, perhaps caused by the wearing of the monocle that now hung from his jacket pocket. "Sit down," gestured Patrick as he himself took a seat. The manner in which he spoke was somewhat strange; he seemed to group his sentences into groups of six words or so.

As Tom seated himself, he noticed that Patrick gave off a slight smell of something he could not quite identify at this moment.

"Alright," stated Patrick in his funny voice. "You must answer this question. There are two ropes. Each is one metre long. You have some matches. Each rope burns in one hour. The ropes do not burn linearly. That is, half the rope does not necessarily burn in half an hour. How do you measure out forty-five minutes?"

Tom thought for a while, and then smiled, even as that squinty eye stared hard.

Using only the matches and the two ropes, how can you measure out 45 minutes?