nine
o'clock
But nobody with whom he came into contact appeared to be aware of the immense success of _ Love in Babylon _ . In the office of Powells were seven full-fledged solicitors and seventeen other clerks , without counting Henry , and not a man or youth of the educated lot of them made the slightest reference to _ Love in Babylon _ during all that day . -LRB- It was an ordinary , plain , common , unromantic , dismal Tuesday in Lincoln 's Inn Fields . -RRB- Eighteen thousand persons had already bought _ Love in Babylon _ ; possibly several hundreds of copies had been sold since nine o'clock that morning ; doubtless someone was every minute inquiring for it and demanding it in bookshop or library , just as someone is born every minute . And yet here was the author , the author himself , the veritable and only genuine author , going about his daily business unhonoured , unsung , uncongratulated , even unnoticed ! It was incredible , and , besides being incredible , it was exasperating . Henry was modest , but there are limits to modesty , and more than once in the course of that amazing and endless Tuesday Henry had a narrow escape of dragging _ Love in Babylon _ bodily into the miscellaneous conversation of the office .