about three o’clock
Into the history of Mr Francis Beveridge , as supplied by the obliging candour of the Baron von Blitzenberg and the notes of Dr Escott , Dr Twiddel and his friend Robert Welsh make a kind of explanatory entry . They most effectually set the ball a-rolling , and so the story starts in a small room looking out on a very uninteresting London street . It was about three o'clock on a November afternoon , that season of fogs and rains and mud , when towns-people long for fresh air and hillsides , and country-folk think wistfully of the warmth and lights of a city , when nobody is satisfied , and everybody has a cold . Outside the window of the room there were a few feet of earth adorned with a low bush or two , a line of railings , a stone-paved street , and on the other side a long row of uniform yellow brick houses . The apartment itself was a modest chamber , containing a minimum of rented furniture and a flickering gas-stove . By a small caseful of medical treatises and a conspicuous stethoscope , the least experienced could see that it was labelled consulting-room .