nine o'clock
This was still lit by a dissipated-looking hanging-lamp , which was evidently the worse for having been up all night , and bore a singular resemblance to a faded reveller of Angel 's , who even then sputtered and flickered in HIS socket in an arm-chair below it , -- a resemblance so plain that when the first level sunbeam pierced the window-pane , the barkeeper , moved by a sentiment of consistency and compassion , put them both out together . Then the sun came up haughtily . When it had passed the eastern ridge it began , after its habit , to lord it over Angel 's , sending the thermometer up twenty degrees in as many minutes , driving the mules to the sparse shade of corrals and fences , making the red dust incandescent , and renewing its old imperious aggression on the spiked bosses of the convex shield of pines that defended Table Mountain . Thither by nine o'clock all coolness had retreated , and the `` outsides '' of the up stage plunged their hot faces in its aromatic shadows as in water . It was the custom of the driver of the Wingdam coach to whip up his horses and enter Angel 's at that remarkable pace which the woodcuts in the hotel bar-room represented to credulous humanity as the usual rate of speed of that conveyance . At such times the habitual expression of disdainful reticence and lazy official severity which he wore on the box became intensified as the loungers gathered about the vehicle , and only the boldest ventured to address him . It was the Hon. Judge Beeswinger , Member of Assembly , who to-day presumed , perhaps rashly , on the strength of his official position .