nearly eleven o'clock
`` And he went out and called upon a great lawyer and asked him if he did not want a partner in his business for a day , but the lawyer only laughed and told him to go to the doctor and ask him . So Tom went to the doctor , and the doctor said he did not want a partner , but he did want a boy to take medicines for him and tell him what they tasted like , and he promised Tom fifty cents if he would be that boy for a day , and Tom said he would try . `` Then the doctor got out his medicine-chest and gave Tom twelve bottles of medicine , and told him to taste each one of them , and Tom tasted two of them , and decided that he would rather do without the circus than taste the rest , so the doctor bade him farewell , and Tom went to look for something else to do . As he walked disconsolately down the street and saw by the clock that it was nearly eleven o'clock , he made up his mind that he would think no more about the circus , but would go home and study arithmetic instead , the chance of his being able to earn the fifty cents seemed so very slight . So he turned back , and was about to go to his home , when he caught sight of another circus poster , which showed how the fiery , untamed giraffe caught cocoanuts in his mouth -- the cocoanuts being fired out of a cannon set off by a clown who looked as if he could make a joke that would make an owl laugh . This was too much for Tom . He could n't miss that without at least making one further effort to earn the money that would pay for his ticket .