two o'clock
By Jupiter , life 's a capital thing , after all ! '' * * * * * Having seen Dalrymple to his lodgings and dressed his wound , which was , in truth , but a very slight one , I left him and went home , promising to return in a few hours , and help him with his packing ; for we both agreed that he must leave Paris that evening , come what might . It was now close upon two o'clock , and I had been out since between three and four the previous afternoon -- not quite twenty-four hours , in point of actual time ; but a week , a month , a year , in point of sensation ! Had I not seen a man die since that hour yesterday ? Walking homewards through the garish streets in the hot afternoon , all the strange scenes in which I had just been an actor thronged fantastically upon my memory . The joyous dinner with Franz Müller ; the busy Temple ; the noisy theatre ; the long chase through the wet streets at midnight ; the crowded gaming-house ; the sweet country drive at early morning ; the quiet wood , and the dead man lying on his back , with the shadows of the leaves upon his face , -- all this , in strange distinctness , came between me and the living tide of the Boulevards .