ten o'clock
Each set consisted simply of a sitting-room and of a bedroom , while the two corresponding rooms upon the ground-floor were used , the one as a coal-cellar , and the other as the living-room of the servant , or gyp , Thomas Styles , whose duty it was to wait upon the three men above him . To right and to left was a line of lecture-rooms and of offices , so that the dwellers in the old turret enjoyed a certain seclusion , which made the chambers popular among the more studious undergraduates . Such were the three who occupied them now -- Abercrombie Smith above , Edward Bellingham beneath him , and William Monkhouse Lee upon the lowest storey . It was ten o'clock on a bright spring night , and Abercrombie Smith lay back in his arm-chair , his feet upon the fender , and his briar-root pipe between his lips . In a similar chair , and equally at his ease , there lounged on the other side of the fireplace his old school friend Jephro Hastie . Both men were in flannels , for they had spent their evening upon the river , but apart from their dress no one could look at their hard-cut , alert faces without seeing that they were open-air men -- men whose minds and tastes turned naturally to all that was manly and robust . Hastie , indeed , was stroke of his college boat , and Smith was an even better oar , but a coming examination had already cast its shadow over him and held him to his work , save for the few hours a week which health demanded .