A quarter to ten
but `` Here I am , and oh , I never thought I should be ! '' And from his place by the pillar Ransome gave the little inarticulate murmur he reserved for Winny . It was charged with his sense of tenderness and absurdity . * * * * * A quarter to ten . His own performances -- his wonderful performances on the horizontal bar -- were over ; and over the demonstration by F. Booty with the Indian clubs , where young Fred , slender and supple as a faun , played on his own muscles in faultless rhythm . And now with an eye upon the Mayor the order was given for the last item on the programme : / # THE COMBINED MAZE # / There was a rush of energetic young men who flung themselves upon the properties of the Gymnasium . They ran them -- the parallel bars , the horses , the mattresses -- in under the galleries ; they uprooted the posts of the horizontal bar ; they cleared the whole of the vast oblong space bounded by the pillars .