eight o'clock
I knew that , before I could reach her , Helen would have left her rooms for Barnard College ; breakfast had been a mistake . Then I noticed that Nassau Street was just opposite ; and , in spite of my impatience to be at her door , I constrained myself to look up Judge Baker . Between its Babel towers narrow Nassau Street was like a canyon . The pavements were wet , for folks had just finished washing windows , though it was eight o'clock in the forenoon . Bicycles zipped past and from somewhere north a freshet of people flooded the sidewalk and roadway . Down a steep little hill and up another -- both thronged past belief -- and in a great marble maze of lawyers ' offices I found the sign of Baker & Magoun . The boy who alone represented the firm said that I might have to wait some minutes , and turned me loose to browse in the big , high-ceiled outer room or library of the place where I am to work .