eight o'clock
If he could avoid speaking to him he did so . He had a way of sending directions to the book-keeper by the young man . The book-keeper , if he also surmised Carroll 's private life , gave no sign , although he had ample time . He sat at his desk faithfully from eight o'clock until half-past four , but the work which he had to do was somewhat amazing to a mind which stopped to reason . Sometimes even this man , who understood the world in general as a place to be painfully clambered and tramped and even crawled over , to the accomplishment of the ulterior end of remaining upon it at all , and who paid very little attention to other people 's affairs , except as they directly concerned the tragic pettiness of his own , wondered a little at the nature of the accounts which he faithfully kept . This book-keeper , whose name was William Allbright , lived in Harlem , so far up that it seemed fairly in the country , and on the second floor of a small , ancient building which , indeed , belonged to the period when Harlem was country and which remained between two modern apartment houses . The book-keeper had a half-right in a little green backyard , wherein flourished with considerable energy an aged cherry-tree , from which the tenants always fondly hoped for cherries .