eight o'clock
She was a thin , faded , funereal-looking person , her body encased in a black silk dress , which looked as if it had been pressed and ironed over night , and her hands in black silk mitts which reached to her knuckles . On Mrs. Boggs 's right sat Bates -- a rising young lawyer with political tendencies -- one of the first men to cut his hair so `` Zou-Zou '' that it stood straight up from his forehead ; and next to him Morgan , the editor , who pored over manuscript while his coffee got cold ; and then Nelson , and Webster , and Cummings all graded in Miss Ann 's mind as being eight , or ten , or twelve-dollar-a-week men , depending on the rooms that they occupied , and farther along , toward Miss Sarah , Cranch and Cockburn -- five-dollar boys these -LRB- Fred was another -RRB- , with the privilege of lighting their own coke fires , and of trimming the wicks and filling the bulbs of their own burning-fluid lamps . And away down in the far corner , crumpled up in his chair , crouched the cheery little hunchback , Mr. Crumbs , who kept a book-stall on Astor Place , where Bayard Taylor , Irving , Halleck , Bryant , and many another member of the Century Club used to spend their late afternoons delving among the old volumes on his shelves . All these regular boarders , including Fog-horn Cranch and Fred , breakfasted at eight o'clock . Waller , the painter , and Tomlins , the swell , breakfasted at nine . As to that descendant of the Irish kings , Mr. Cornelius McFudd , he rose at ten , or twelve , or two , just as the spirit -LRB- and its dilutions of the night before -RRB- moved or retarded him , and breakfasted whenever Miss Ann or Miss Sarah , who had presided continuously at the coffee-urn from eight to ten , could spare one of her two servants to carry a tray to his room . Last and by no means least , with her eyes devouring every expression that flitted across the new arrival 's face , there beamed out beside Miss Ann , a tail , willowy young person , whom Fred , in answer to an inquiring lifting of Oliver 's eyebrows , designated as the belle of the house .