nearly eight
o'clock
The chain took to sitting in the kitchen , cups of tea began mysteriously to circulate , and personal narratives of the fire were already foreshadowing the amazing legends that have since gathered round the night 's adventure . I left to Denis the task of clearing the house , and went up to change my wet clothes , with a feeling that I had not been to bed for a year . The ghost of a waiter who had drowned himself in a boghole would have presented a cheerier aspect than I , as I surveyed myself in the prehistoric mirror in my room , with the sunshine falling on my unshorn face and begrimed shirt-front . I made my toilet at considerable length , and , it being now nearly eight o'clock , went downstairs to look for something to eat . I had left the house humming with people ; I found it silent as Pompeii . The sheeted bundles containing Mrs. Knox 's wardrobe were lying about the hall ; a couple of ancestors who in the first alarm had been dragged from the walls were leaning drunkenly against the bundles ; last night 's dessert was still on the dining-room table . I went out on to the hall-door steps , and saw the entrée-dishes in a glittering heap in a nasturtium bed , and realised that there was no breakfast for me this side of lunch at Shreelane .