eleven o’clock
It was almost beyond belief that any man with such whims should ever have had the money to gratify them . I returned to the main floor and studied the titles of the books in the library , finally smoking a pipe over a very tedious chapter in an exceedingly dull work on Norman Revivals and Influences . Then I went out , assuring myself that I should get steadily to work in a day or two . It was not yet eleven o'clock , and time was sure to move deliberately within the stone walls of my prison . The long winter lay before me in which I must study perforce , and just now it was pleasant to view the landscape in all its autumn splendor . Bates was soberly chopping wood at a rough pile of timber at the rear of the house . His industry had already impressed me .