nearly nine o'clock
Many of these experiences I have already placed on record ; but it now occurs to me that I have hitherto left unrecorded one that is , perhaps , the most astonishing and incredible of the whole series ; an adventure , too , that has for me the added interest that it inaugurated my permanent association with my learned and talented friend , and marked the close of a rather unhappy and unprosperous period of my life . Memory , retracing the journey through the passing years to the starting-point of those strange events , lands me in a shabby little ground-floor room in a house near the Walworth end of Lower Kennington Lane . A couple of framed diplomas on the wall , a card of Snellen 's test-types and a stethoscope lying on the writing-table , proclaim it a doctor 's consulting-room ; and my own position in the round-backed chair at the said table , proclaims me the practitioner in charge . It was nearly nine o'clock . The noisy little clock on the mantelpiece announced the fact , and , by its frantic ticking , seemed as anxious as I to get the consultation hours over . I glanced wistfully at my mud-splashed boots and wondered if I might yet venture to assume the slippers that peeped coyly from under the shabby sofa . I even allowed my thoughts to wander to the pipe that reposed in my coat pocket .