about five
o'clock
`` After so many years ... the good old chap . '' Then he pulled himself up and set his shoulders . `` Well , half-past ten -- '' The streets were , at the instant , almost deserted . It was about five o'clock now and at seven o'clock they would be closed to all traffic . Then the surging crowds would come sweeping down . Peter , furiously excited , hurried through the grimy deserts of Bloomsbury , to Brockett 's . To his singing , beating heart the thin ribbon of the grey street with the faint dim blue of the evening sky was out of place , ill-judged as a setting to his exultations .