eight
o'clock
He was still there very early in the morning of December 8th , 1892 . He was sitting up in bed . The cuckoo clock had just struck five , and he was aware that he was , at this very moment , for the first time in his life , eight years old . He had gone to bed at eight o'clock on the preceding evening with the choking consciousness that he would awake in the morning a different creature . Although he had slept , there had permeated the texture of his dreams that same choking excitement , and now , wide awake , as though he had asked the cuckoo to call him in order that he might not be late for the great occasion , he stared into the black distance of his bedroom and reflected , with a beating heart , upon the great event . He was eight years old , and he had as much right now to the nursery arm-chair with a hole in it as Helen had . That was his first definite realisation of approaching triumph .