nine o’clock
Jealousy would not be likely to produce this set of manifestations in young , foolish John ; and I may say here at once , what I somewhat later learned , that the boy had come with precisely the opposite purpose , namely , to repeat and reenforce his steadfast constancy , and that it was something far removed from jealousy which had spurred him to this . I found the girl behind the counter at her post , grateful to me for coming to ask how she was after the shock of yesterday , but unwilling to speak of it at all ; all which she expressed by her charming manner , and by the other subjects she chose for conversation , and especially by the way in which she held out her hand when I took my leave . Near the post-office I was hailed by Beverly Rodgers , who proclaimed to me at once a comic but genuine distress . He had already walked , he said -LRB- and it was but half-past nine o'clock , as he bitterly bade me observe on the church dial -RRB- , more miles in search of a drink than his unarithmetical brain had the skill to compute . And he confounded such a town heartily ; he should return as soon as possible to Charley 's yacht , where there was civilization , and where he had spent the night . During his search he had at length come to a door of promising appearance , and gone in there , and they had explained to him that it was a dispensary . A beastly arrangement .