nine o'clock in the evening
Blake slept in a corner of the saloon that night . He left the next morning , a curious expression of resolution on his face . During the next three weeks he was now and then alluded to in P. Gibbs 's saloon as the `` coughing stranger . '' In the middle of the third week , at nine o'clock in the evening , when the lamps in P. Gibbs 's saloon were exerting their smallest degree of dimness and the bar was doing a good business , the door opened and in staggered Busted Blake . His staggering on this occasion was manifestly not due to drink . His face had the hideous concavities of a starved man and the uncertainty of his gait was the token of a mortal feebleness . His emaciation was painful to behold .