nine o'clock
For the fraction of a second I was a wee bit startled . I had not had the ghost of a suspicion that anyone was nearer me than the gang of labourers who were busily engaged in unloading a big delivery wagon and transferring the contents , in the shape of numerous packing cases , to the deck of the vessel which I was scrutinising . It was afternoon of a grey day in the latter part of October three years ago ; and the scene was one of the wharves of the east basin of the London Docks , round which I had been prowling in search of a ship . I had been thus engaged ever since nine o'clock that morning , interviewing skippers and mates , so far unsuccessfully , when I was `` brought up all standing '' by finding myself in close proximity to a white-hulled , ship-rigged craft of , I estimated , some two thousand five hundred tons measurement . She was steel-built , with steel lower masts , bowsprit , and lower and topsail yards ; and even if she had not been sporting the ensign of the New York Yacht Club at her ensign staff and its burgee at her main royal-mast-head , I should still have known her for a yacht from the perfection of her lines , the dainty and exquisite beauty of her shape , the whiteness of her decks -LRB- notwithstanding their somewhat littered condition -RRB- , the beautiful modelling of her boats , her polished teak rails , and generally the high finish and perfect cleanliness of her deck fittings . She was as heavily rigged as a frigate ; moreover , although no guns were visible , I observed that her main-deck bulwarks were pierced with six ports of a side , in the wake of which steel racers were bolted to the deck ; also she sported hammock rails , which I had never seen before except in pictures of old-fashioned wooden men-o ' - war . A gilt cable moulding ornamented her sheer strake ; a beautifully carved and gilded full-length figure of a woman wearing a star of cut-glass facets on her forehead formed her figurehead ; and her quarters were adorned with a considerable amount of gilded scroll-work .