eight o'clock
`` We 'll hold the ship five minutes for you , '' the clerk said . `` That 's the best we can do . '' So I rushed back to my taxi and we spun off to the third level and sped across the Staten bridge like a comet treading a steel rainbow . I had to be in Moscow by evening , by eight o'clock , in fact , for the opening of bids on the Ural Tunnel . The Government required the personal presence of an agent of each bidder , but the firm should have known better than to send me , Dixon Wells , even though the N. J. Wells Corporation is , so to speak , my father . I have a -- well , an undeserved reputation for being late to everything ; something always comes up to prevent me from getting anywhere on time . It 's never my fault ; this time it was a chance encounter with my old physics professor , old Haskel van Manderpootz .