half past ten o'clock
Housewives followed by negro servants were purchasing meats and vegetables , holding eggs to the light to see if they were fresh , tasting pats of butter , handling chickens , and haggling with the farmers about the prices of what they had to sell . -LSB- Footnote 11 : The market was held in the open space around Faneuil Hall , in which were rails where the farmers from the surrounding towns hitched their horses . It was bounded on one side by the dock where the fishermen moored their boats . -RSB- The town-crier was jingling his bell and shouting that Thomas Russell at the auction room on Queen Street would sell a great variety of plain and spotted , lilac , scarlet , strawberry-colored , and yellow paduasoys , bellandine silks , sateens , galloons , ferrets , grograms , and harratines at half past ten o'clock . Robert tied Jenny to the hitching-rail , and walked amid the hucksters to see what they had to sell ; by observation he could ascertain the state of the market , and govern himself accordingly . After interviewing the hucksters he entered a store . `` No , I do n't want any cheese , '' said the first on whom he called .