nine o’clock
Another came down Fifth Avenue to the corner of Twenty-sixth Street , took a general survey , and hobbled off again . Two or three noticeable Bowery types edged along the Fifth Avenue side of Madison Square , but did not venture over . The soldier , in his cape overcoat , walked a short line of ten feet at his corner , to and fro , indifferently whistling . As nine o'clock approached , some of the hubbub of the earlier hour passed . The atmosphere of the hotels was not so youthful . The air , too , was colder . On every hand curious figures were moving -- watchers and peepers , without an imaginary circle , which they seemed afraid to enter -- a dozen in all .