eleven o'clock
`` All right , but until you learn the ropes , let me advise you . '' The boy gazed into the fire for a few moments of silence . `` I gives ye my hand on thet , '' he promised . At eleven o'clock the painter , having shown his guest over the premises , said good-night , and went up-town to his own house . Samson lay a long while awake , with many disquieting reflections . Before his closed eyes rose insistently the picture of a smoky cabin with a puncheon floor and of a girl upon whose cheeks and temples flickered orange and vermilion lights . To his ears came the roar of elevated trains , and , since a fog had risen over the Hudson , the endless night - splitting screams of brazen-throated ferry whistles .