seven o'clock
Afterwards she must go to Farringdon Road Buildings , though never yet had she presented herself to Bob 's father . You remember that the Gardens had an offshoot , which was known simply as The Court . In this blind alley there stood throughout the day a row of baked-potato ovens , ten or a dozen of them , chained together , the property of a local capitalist who let them severally to men engaged in this business . At seven o'clock of an evening fires were wont to be lighted under each of these baking-machines , preparatory to their being wheeled away , each to its customary street-corner . Now the lighting of fires entails the creation of smoke , and whilst these ten or twelve ovens were getting ready to bake potatoes the Court was in a condition not easily described . A single lamp existed for the purpose of giving light to the alley , and at no time did this serve much more than to make darkness visible ; at present the blind man would have fared as well in that retreat as he who had eyes , and the marvel was how those who lived there escaped suffocation . In the Gardens themselves volumes of dense smoke every now and then came driven along by the cold gusts ; the air had a stifling smell and a bitter taste .