midday
Now a necessity was upon him , and he had to go . It was about ten o'clock in the morning when , at almost a single step , he passed from what seemed paradise to purgatory , the sudden contrast was so great . There were but few persons in the little street ; where the mission was situated at that early hour , and most of these were children -- poor , half-clothed , dirty , wan-faced , keen-eyed and alert bits of humanity , older by far than their natural years , few of them possessing any higher sense of right and wrong than young savages . The night 's late orgies or crimes had left most of their elders in a heavy morning sleep , from which they did not usually awaken before midday . Here and there one and another came creeping out , impelled by a thirst no water could quench . Now it was a bloated , wild-eyed man , dirty and forlorn beyond description , shambling into sight , but disappearing in a moment or two in one of the dram-shops , whose name was legion , and now it was a woman with the angel all gone out of her face , barefooted , blotched , coarse , red-eyed , bruised and awfully disfigured by her vicious , drunken life . Her steps too made haste to the dram-shop .