nine o'clock
It appeared to consist of a piece of ordinary stovepipe about twelve inches long . The face and works of an alarm clock , being of a slightly smaller circumference , had been placed within one end of the pipe , the face out , and the intervening space around this was packed with cotton waste . The other end of the pipe was closed with a kind of gummy cement . Tom observed that the little alarm dial in the clock 's face was set for nine o'clock , which of course afforded him infinite relief , for it was not yet seven . With the greatest of care and hands trembling a little , he pulled out some of the cotton waste around the clock face , holding the dial steady with one hand , and found that nothing save this packing was holding the clock in place . He joggled it very gently this way and that to make sure that it was not connected with anything behind . Then he lifted it out and stood it upright on a shelf with cans on either side of it to keep it in place .