nearly six o'clock
The streets seemed deserted , and Mr. Shrimplin being as he was of a somewhat fanciful turn of mind , could almost imagine himself and Bill the only living things astir in all the town . He reached Water Street , the western boundary of that part of Mount Hope known as the flats . He jogged past Maxy Schaffer 's Railroad Hotel at the corner of Front Street , which flung the wicked radiance of its bar-room windows along the shining railroad track where it crossed the creek on the new iron bridge ; and keeping on down Water Street with its smoky tenements , entered an outlying district where the lamps were far apart and where red and blue and green switch lights blinked at him out of the storm . It was nearly six o'clock when he at last wheeled into the Square ; here only three gasolene burners -- survivors of the old régime -- held their own against the fast encroaching gas-lamp . He lighted the one in Division Street and was ready to turn and traverse the north side of the Square to the second lamp which stood a block away at the corner of High Street . He was drawing Bill 's head about -- Bill being smitten with a sudden desire to go directly home leaving the night 's work unfinished -- when the muffled figure of a man appeared in the street in front of him . The inch or more of snow that now covered the pavement had deadened the sound of his steps , while the eddying flakes had made possible his near approach unseen .