four o'clock
She noticed also , as she spread the table , a number of bottles set upon the floor , two of them with yellow labels -- the result of Maggie 's errand -- and prepared herself to face a somewhat riotous evening . But Christmas , she reflected for her consolation , comes but once a year . It was about nine o'clock that the two men and the one woman sat down to supper upstairs . The children had been put to bed in the kitchen as usual , after Jimmie had informed his mother that the clergyman had been round no less than three times since four o'clock to inquire after the vanished lodger . He was a little tearful at being put to bed at such an unusually early hour , as Mr. Parham-Carter , it appeared , had promised him no less than sixpence if he would come round to the clergy-house within five minutes after the lodger 's return , and it was obviously impossible to traverse the streets in a single flannel shirt . His mother dismissed it all as nonsense . She told him that Frankie was not coming back at all -- that he was n't a good young man , and had run away without paying mother her rent .