eleven o'clock
The death-in-life was too well portrayed . You smelt the fumy liquor that had brought on this syncope . Your only comfort lay in the forced reflection , that , real as he looked , the poor caitiff was but imaginary , a bit of painted canvass , whom no delirium tremens , nor so much as a retributive headache , awaited , on the morrow . By this time , it being past eleven o'clock , the two bar-keepers of the saloon were in pretty constant activity . One of these young men had a rare faculty in the concoction of gin-cocktails . It was a spectacle to behold , how , with a tumbler in each hand , he tossed the contents from one to the other . Never conveying it awry , nor spilling the least drop , he compelled the frothy liquor , as it seemed to me , to spout forth from one glass and descend into the other , in a great parabolic curve , as well-defined and calculable as a planet 's orbit .