five
o'clock
There was no richer man in Venice than Tommaso Tonelli , who had enough on his florin a day ; and none younger than he , who owned himself forty-seven years old . He led the cheerfullest life in the world , and was quite a monster of content ; but when I come to sum up his pleasures , I fear that I shall appear to my readers to be celebrating a very insipid and monotonous existence . I doubt if even a summary of his duties could be made attractive to the conscientious imagination of hard-working people ; for Tonelli 's labors were not killing , nor , for that matter , were those of any Venetian that I ever knew . He had a stated employment in the office of the notary Cenarotti ; and he passed there so much of every working day as lies between nine and five o'clock , writing upon deeds and conveyances and petitions and other legal instruments for the notary , who sat in an adjoining room , secluded from nearly everything in this world but snuff . He called Tonelli by the sound of a little bell ; and , when he turned to take a paper from his safe , he seemed to be abstracting some secret from long-lapsed centuries , which he restored again , and locked back among the dead ages when his clerk replaced the document in his hands . These hands were very soft and pale , and their owner was a colorless old man , whose silvery hair fell down a face nearly as white ; but , as he has almost nothing to do with the present affair , I shall merely say that , having been compromised in the last revolution , he had been obliged to live ever since in perfect retirement , and that he seemed to have been blanched in this social darkness as a plant is blanched by growth in a cellar . His enemies said that he was naturally a timid man , but they could not deny that he had seen things to make the brave afraid , or that he had now every reason from the police to be secret and cautious in his life .