about noon
Emigration and , above all , the enormous death-roll of the past eighteen months , had emptied the apartment houses of the great city , and those who had rooms to let were only too glad of a lodger , always providing they were not in danger of being worried by the committees of their section . The laws framed by these same committees now demanded that all keepers of lodging or apartment houses should within twenty-four hours give notice at the bureau of their individual sections of the advent of new lodgers , together with a description of the personal appearance of such lodgers , and an indication of their presumed civil status and occupation . 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 .