about three o'clock
It was early in June that Lantier took possession of his new quarters . Coupeau had offered the night before to help him with his trunk in order to avoid the thirty sous for a fiacre . But the other seemed embarrassed and said his trunk was heavy , and it seemed as if he preferred to keep it a secret even now where he resided . He came about three o'clock . Coupeau was not there , and Gervaise , standing at her shop door , turned white as she recognized the trunk on the fiacre . It was their old one with which they had traveled from Plassans . Now it was banged and battered and strapped with cords .