one o'clock
But the change from my well-appointed lodgings in Cambridge and my luxurious surroundings at the Cock and Spur to a distinctly shabby theatrical boarding-house , where the guests plainly exhibited traces of the lack of proper ablutional facilities and the hallways smelt of cabbage and onions , was a distinct shock to my highly sensitive tastes . However , my new acquaintances proved warm-hearted and hospitable and did everything in their power to make me feel at my ease , with the result that in spite of the cabbage and the wooden slats that served as springs in my bed -- which nearly filled the rear hall bed-room I had hired for one week at four dollars and twenty-five cents -- I resolved to postpone entering upon an active career until I should know the city better and have made a few friends . Those of my new comrades who were lucky enough to have employment did not rise in the morning until the neighborhood of twelve o'clock , and those who had no employment at all followed their example . I thus found myself adopting of necessity , as it were , the pleasant practice of sauntering out on Broadway after a one o'clock breakfast , and of spending most of the afternoon , evening , and following morning in or about the same locality . We usually went to some theatrical show on what was known as `` paper , '' and I afterward joined my actor friends at a restaurant , where we sang songs and told stories until the gas-lamps were extinguished and gray dawn crept over the house-tops . Downtown -- into the mysterious district of Wall Street -- I did not , as yet , go , and I might still be haunting the stage entrances of the theatres had it not been for an adventure in which I was an involuntary participant . It so happened that among my new acquaintances was a careless , rattle-brained youth known as Toby Robinson , who in spite of some histrionic ability was constantly losing his job and always in debt .