about ten o'clock
enquired Mr. Demetrius in angry amazement . `` I humbly beg your honour 's pardon , '' said Margari with meek intrepidity , `` there 's nothing about reading _ after six _ in our agreement '' -- and off he went . Mr. Demetrius thereupon flew into a violent rage , cursed and swore , vowed that he would dismiss his reader on the spot , and as the morning grew lighter fell into a deep , death-like , narcotic sleep from which he would not have awakened if the house had come tumbling about his ears . When he did awake , about ten o'clock , his first care was to make enquiries about Mr. John . Then he sent the porter to the police station to inform the authorities that his son and Mr. Hátszegi , who were both staying at the Queen of England inn , were going to fight a duel , which should be prevented at all hazards . A police constable , at this announcement , flung himself into a hackney-coach and set off at full speed to make enquiries . Half an hour later a heyduke was sent back to the porter to tell him that either the whole affair must be a hoax , as nothing was known of a duel , or else that the two combatants must already be dead and buried , as not a word could be heard of either of them .