nine o'clock
I wo n't have my wittles blest off my table . Keep still ! '' Exceedingly red-eyed and grim , as if he had been up all night at a party which had taken anything but a convivial turn , Jerry Cruncher worried his breakfast rather than ate it , growling over it like any four-footed inmate of a menagerie . Towards nine o'clock he smoothed his ruffled aspect , and , presenting as respectable and business-like an exterior as he could overlay his natural self with , issued forth to the occupation of the day . It could scarcely be called a trade , in spite of his favourite description of himself as `` a honest tradesman . '' His stock consisted of a wooden stool , made out of a broken-backed chair cut down , which stool , young Jerry , walking at his father 's side , carried every morning to beneath the banking-house window that was nearest Temple Bar : where , with the addition of the first handful of straw that could be gleaned from any passing vehicle to keep the cold and wet from the odd-job-man 's feet , it formed the encampment for the day . On this post of his , Mr. Cruncher was as well known to Fleet-street and the Temple , as the Bar itself , -- and was almost as in-looking .