ten o'clock
`` You 're welcome any time . '' The door closed behind them , and Aubrey fell into a profound melancholy . Deprived of the heavenly rhetoric of her eye , Gissing Street seemed flat and dull . It was still early -- not quite ten o'clock -- and it occurred to Aubrey that if he was going to patrol the neighbourhood he had better fix its details in his head . Hazlitt , the next street below the bookshop , proved to be a quiet little byway , cheerfully lit with modest dwellings . A few paces down Hazlitt Street a narrow cobbled alley ran through to Wordsworth Avenue , passing between the back yards of Gissing Street and Whittier Street . The alley was totally dark , but by counting off the correct number of houses Aubrey identified the rear entrance of the bookshop .