ten o'clock
It was March and the evenings were chill , so Jane had lit the fire , but the wind drove the smoke downwards and the air was full of its acrid taint . Johnson felt chilled to the bone , though rather by his apprehensions than by the weather . He crouched over the fire with his thin white hands held out to the blaze . At ten o'clock Jane brought in the joint of cold meat and laid his place for supper , but he could not bring himself to touch it . He drank a glass of the beer , however , and felt the better for it . The tension of his nerves seemed to have reacted upon his hearing , and he was able to follow the most trivial things in the room above . Once , when the beer was still heartening him , he nerved himself to creep on tiptoe up the stair and to listen to what was going on .