five in the afternoon
It is one of the squares that have been ; a quarter of the town that has gone down in the world , and taken to letting lodgings . Many of its first and second floors are let , furnished , to single gentlemen ; and it takes boarders besides . It is a great resort of foreigners . The dark-complexioned men who wear large rings , and heavy watch-guards , and bushy whiskers , and who congregate under the Opera Colonnade , and about the box-office in the season , between four and five in the afternoon , when they give away the orders , -- all live in Golden Square , or within a street of it . Two or three violins and a wind instrument from the Opera band reside within its precincts . Its boarding-houses are musical , and the notes of pianos and harps float in the evening time round the head of the mournful statue , the guardian genius of a little wilderness of shrubs , in the centre of the square . On a summer 's night , windows are thrown open , and groups of swarthy moustached men are seen by the passer-by , lounging at the casements , and smoking fearfully .