about 9 A.M.
I intended to make for the sea-shore the next morning , and had therefore to choose a good petrol motor , store it , and have it in a place of safety ; I had also to drag another vehicle after me , stored with trunks of time-fuses , books , clothes , and other little things . My first journey was to Woolwich , whence I took all that I might ever require in the way of mechanism ; thence to the National Gallery , where I cut from their frames the ` Vision of St. Helena , ' Murillo 's ` Boy Drinking , ' and ` Christ at the Column ' ; and thence to the Embassy to bathe , anoint myself , and dress . As I had anticipated , and hoped , a blustering spring gale was blowing from the north . Even as I set out from Hampstead , about 9 A.M. , I had been able to guess that some of my fuses had somehow anticipated the appointed hour : for I saw three red hazes at various points in the air , and heard the far vague booming of an occasional explosion ; and by 11 A.M. I felt sure that a large region of north-eastern London must be in flames . With the solemn feelings of bridegrooms and marriage-mornings -- with a flinching , a flinching heart , God knows , yet a heart up-buoyed on thrilling joys -- I went about making preparations for the Gargantuan orgy of the night . * * * * * The house at Hampstead , which no doubt still stands , is of rather pleasing design in quite a stone and rural style , with good breadths of wall-surface , two plain coped gables , mullioned windows , and oversailing slate verge roofs , but , rather spoiling it , a high square three-storied tower at the south-east angle , on the topmost floor of which I had slept the previous night . There I had provided myself with a jar of pale tobacco mixed with rose-leaves and opium , found in a foreign house in Seymour Street , also a genuine Saloniki hookah , together with the best wines , nuts , and so on , and a gold harp of the musician Krasinski , stamped with his name , taken from his house in Portland Street .