eleven o'clock
I asked . `` The city where I was born , sir , '' he said , `` and the name of which I must be excused from mentioning for reasons connected with my only surviving parent . There were houses on the river bank , but they were not very near each other . Some of them had lights in them , but most of them were dark , as it must have been after eleven o'clock . Before one of them my father stopped rowing for a moment and looked at it pretty hard . It seemed to be all dark , but as we pulled on a little I saw a light in the back of the house . `` My father said nothing , but we kept on , though pulling very easy for a mile or two , and then we turned and floated down with the tide .