ten o’clock
asked his companion quickly . `` Well , '' he answered , after a second 's hesitation , `` I heard so two days ago . '' Then Howell , pleading an urgent meeting with a mutual friend , also a crook like themselves , grasped the other 's hand , and they parted . At ten o'clock on the morning that Hugh Henfrey left Avignon for Paris , The Sparrow stood at the window of his cozy little flat in the Rue des Petits Champs , where he was known to his elderly housekeeper -- a worthy old soul from Yvetot , in the north -- as Guillaume Gautier . The house was one of those great old ones built in the days of the First Empire , with a narrow entrance and square courtyard into which the stage coaches with postilions rumbled before the days of the P.L.M. and aircraft . In the Napoleonic days it had been the residence of the Dukes de Vizelle , but in modern times it had been converted into a series of very commodious flats . The Sparrow , sprightly and alert , stood , after taking his _ cafe au lait _ , looking down into the courtyard .