a quarter before four
`` I 'm going to make up my mind at once . Nothing stales so quickly as a good resolution . '' A crisis does not create character , but is simply its test . The young man who entered the gates of No. 64 Jefferson Street at five that afternoon was in all respects he who left them at a quarter before four , though he seemed very different to himself . He went direct to his own room and did not descend until the supper bell sounded -- that funny little old jangling bell he and Del had striven to have abolished in the interests of fashionable progress , until they learned that in many of the best English houses it is a custom as sacredly part of the ghostly British Constitution as the bathless bath of the basin , as the jokeless joke of the pun , as the entertainment that entertains not , as the ruler that rules not and the freedom that frees not . When he appeared in the dining-room door , his mother and Del were already seated . His mother , her white face a shade whiter , said : `` I expect you 'd better sit -- there . ''