nine o'clock
So simple , so obvious was it that these three expatriates , these waifs and estrays , banded together against a common poverty , a common loneliness , should share without question whatever was theirs to divide . Peter and Anna gave cheerfully of their substance , Harmony of her labor , that a small boy should be saved a tragic knowledge until he was well enough to bear it , or until , if God so willed , he might learn it himself without pain . The friendly sentry on duty again that night proved singularly blind . Thus it happened that , although the night was clear when the twin dials of the Votivkirche showed nine o'clock , he did not notice a cab that halted across the street from the hospital . Still more strange that , although Peter passed within a dozen feet of him , carrying a wriggling and excited figure wrapped in a blanket and insisting on uncovering its feet , the sentry was able the next day to say that he had observed such a person carrying a bundle , but that it was a short stocky person , quite lame , and that the bundle was undoubtedly clothing going to the laundry . Perhaps -- it is just possible -- the sentry had his suspicions . It is undeniable that as Jimmy in the cab on Peter 's knee , with Peter 's arm close about him , looked back at the hospital , the sentry was going through the manual of arms very solemnly under the stars and facing toward the carriage .