nine o'clock
Without another glance at `` The Serpent of the Nile , '' he turned up his coat collar , pulled his hat over his eyes and plunged out into the wet , dismal street . For hours he tramped , neither knowing nor caring where he went . He was fighting the hardest fight a man is called on to fight , the fight against himself with no reward in view . When he got back to his room , spent and disheveled at nine o'clock , he found two letters under his door . One , a black-bordered envelope addressed in Connie 's familiar scrawl , he thrust into his pocket , smiling in spite of himself at the memory of Miss Lady 's bargain stationery . The other , a long , bulky envelope , bearing the device of a well-known magazine , caused him to sit limply down on his steamer-trunk and gaze at it miserably . His cherished story had come back at last !