eleven o'clock
It is hard to make a living , and the house-rent alone is six dollars a month ; but still one lives , and does not fare so ill either . As it does not seem to be in her to dislike any one , it must be out of a harmless guile , felt to be comforting to servant-ridden householders , that she always speaks of `` those Irish , '' her neighbors , with a bated breath , a shaken head , a hand lifted to the cheek , and an averted countenance . Swarthiest of the organ-grinding tribe is he who peers up at my window out of infinitesimal black eyes , perceives me , louts low , and for form 's sake grinds me out a tune before he begins to talk . As we parley together , say it is eleven o'clock in the forenoon , and a sober tranquillity reigns upon the dust and nodding weeds of Benicia Street . At that hour the organ-grinder and I are the only persons of our sex in the whole suburban population ; all other husbands and fathers having eaten their breakfasts at seven o'clock , and stood up in the early horse-cars to Boston , whence they will return , with aching backs and quivering calves , half-pendant by leathern straps from the roofs of the same luxurious conveyances , in the evening . The Italian might go and grind his organ upon the front stoop of any one of a hundred French-roof houses around , and there would be no arm within strong enough to thrust him thence ; but he is a gentleman in his way , and , as he prettily explains , he never stops to play except where the window smiles on him : a frowning lattice he will pass in silence . I behold in him a disappointed man , -- a man broken in health , and of a liver baked by long sojourn in a tropical clime .