four in the morning
He must keep his _ entrée _ to the house ; above all , he clung to the portrait and the sittings . But the immediate outlook was pretty dark . He was beginning to be pestered with debts and duns -- the appointment on the morrow was with an old frame-maker who had lent him twenty pounds before Christmas , and was now begging piteously for his money . There was nothing to pay him with -- nothing to send Phoebe , in spite of a constant labour at paying jobs in black-and-white that often kept him up till three or four in the morning . He wondered whether Watson would help him with a loan . According to Cuningham , the queer fellow had private means . The fact was he was overstrained -- he knew it .