about eight o'clock in the evening
The following scenes occur in Paris , on the morrow of the day when the shipwrecked travellers were received in Cardoville House . Nothing can be more gloomy than the aspect of the Rue Brise-Miche , one end of which leads into the Rue Saint-Merry , and the other into the little square of the Cloister , near the church . At this end , the street , or rather alley -- for it is not more than eight feet wide -- is shut in between immense black , muddy dilapidated walls , the excessive height of which excludes both air and light ; hardly , during the longest days of the year , is the sun able to throw into it a few straggling beams ; whilst , during the cold damps of winter , a chilling fog , which seems to penetrate everything , hangs constantly above the miry pavement of this species of oblong well . It was about eight o'clock in the evening ; by the faint , reddish light of the street lamp , hardly visible through the haze , two men , stopping at the angle of one of those enormous walls , exchanged a few words together . `` So , '' said one , `` you understand all about it . You are to watch in the street , till you see them enter No. 5 . '' `` All right ! ''