nearly nine o'clock
Morris shrugged his shoulders . `` If I must , I must , '' he said , helping himself to more of the veal stew , `` but I could tell you right now , Minnie , I ai n't got twenty-five cents in my clothes , so you got to lend me a couple of dollars till Saturday . '' `` I 'll cash a check for you , '' Mrs. Perlmutter said firmly , and as soon as dinner was concluded Morris drew a check for ten dollars and Mrs. Perlmutter gave him that amount out of her housekeeping money . It was nearly nine o'clock when Morris and Minnie groped along the dark hallway of a tenement house in Park Avenue . On the iron viaduct that bestrides that deceptively named thoroughfare heavy trains thundered at intervals , and it was only after Morris had knocked repeatedly at the door of a top-floor apartment that its inmates heard the summons above the roar of the traffic without . `` Well , Mrs. Schenkmann , '' Minnie cried cheerfully , `` how 's the baby to-night ? '' `` Schenkmann ? ''