Monday at noon
But there was a margin of twenty-four hours , which could on pressure be extended to forty-eight , and , therefore , any one could obtain shelter for forty-eight hours , and have no questions asked , provided he or she was willing to pay the exorbitant sum usually asked under the circumstances . Thus Blakeney had no difficulty in securing what lodgings he wanted when he once more found himself inside Paris at somewhere about noon of that same Monday . The thought of Hastings and Tony speeding on towards Mantes with the royal child safely held in Hastings ' arms had kept his spirits buoyant and caused him for a while to forget the terrible peril in which Armand St. Just 's thoughtless egoism had placed them both . Blakeney was a man of abnormal physique and iron nerve , else he could never have endured the fatigues of the past twenty-four hours , from the moment when on the Sunday afternoon he began to play his part of furniture-remover at the Temple , to that when at last on Monday at noon he succeeded in persuading the sergeant at the Maillot gate that he was an honest stonemason residing at Neuilly , who was come to Paris in search of work . After that matters became more simple . Terribly foot-sore , though he would never have admitted it , hungry and weary , he turned into an unpretentious eating-house and ordered some dinner . The place when he entered was occupied mostly by labourers and workmen , dressed very much as he was himself , and quite as grimy as he had become after having driven about for hours in a laundry-cart and in a coal-cart , and having walked twelve kilometres , some of which he had covered whilst carrying a sleeping child in his arms .