nine
o'clock
And now come and sit beside me for a little while , and touch me with your hand . For I can not see you , Charley ; I am blind . '' The Appointed Time It is night in Lincoln 's Inn -- perplexed and troublous valley of the shadow of the law , where suitors generally find but little day -- and fat candles are snuffed out in offices , and clerks have rattled down the crazy wooden stairs and dispersed . The bell that rings at nine o'clock has ceased its doleful clangour about nothing ; the gates are shut ; and the night-porter , a solemn warder with a mighty power of sleep , keeps guard in his lodge . From tiers of staircase windows clogged lamps like the eyes of Equity , bleared Argus with a fathomless pocket for every eye and an eye upon it , dimly blink at the stars . In dirty upper casements , here and there , hazy little patches of candlelight reveal where some wise draughtsman and conveyancer yet toils for the entanglement of real estate in meshes of sheep-skin , in the average ratio of about a dozen of sheep to an acre of land . Over which bee-like industry these benefactors of their species linger yet , though office-hours be past , that they may give , for every day , some good account at last .