nine o'clock
Only Think of poor Mrs. Sturk , and the Chock she 's got on sight of Him : and how thankful and Pleasant you should be that Charles Nutter is not a Corpes in the Buchar 's wood , and jiggin Home to you like Sturk did . But well in health , what I 'm certain shure he is , taken the law of Mary Matchwell -- bless the Mark -- to get her emprisind and Publickly wiped by the commin hangman . ' All which rhapsody conjured up a confused and dyspeptic dream , full of absurd and terrific images , which she could not well comprehend , except in so far as it seemed clear that some signal disaster had befallen Sturk . That night , at nine o'clock , the great Doctor Pell arrived in his coach , with steaming horses , at Sturk 's hall-door , where the footman thundered a tattoo that might have roused the dead ; for it was the family 's business , if they did not want a noise , to muffle the knocker . And the doctor strode up , directed by the whispering awestruck maid , to Sturk 's bed-chamber , with his hands in his muff , after the manner of doctors in his day , without asking questions , or hesitating on lobbies , for the sands of his minutes ran out in gold-dust . So , with a sort of awe and suppressed bustle preceding and following him , he glided up stairs and straight to the patient 's bedside , serene , saturnine , and rapid . In a twinkling the maid was running down the street for Toole , who had kept at home , in state costume , expecting the consultation with the great man , which he liked .