a
quarter past eight
Exactly at eight Hickey & Mooney , of the vaudeville team -LRB- unbooked -RRB- in the flat across the hall , would yield to the gentle influence of delirium tremens and begin to overturn chairs under the delusion that Hammerstein was pursuing them with a five-hundred-dollar-a-week contract . Then the gent at the window across the air-shaft would get out his flute ; the nightly gas leak would steal forth to frolic in the highways ; the dumbwaiter would slip off its trolley ; the janitor would drive Mrs. Zanowitski 's five children once more across the Yalu , the lady with the champagne shoes and the Skye terrier would trip downstairs and paste her Thursday name over her bell and letter-box -- and the evening routine of the Frogmore flats would be under way . John Perkins knew these things would happen . And he knew that at a quarter past eight he would summon his nerve and reach for his hat , and that his wife would deliver this speech in a querulous tone : `` Now , where are you going , I 'd like to know , John Perkins ? '' `` Thought I 'd drop up to McCloskey 's , '' he would answer , `` and play a game or two of pool with the fellows . '' Of late such had been John Perkins 's habit . At ten or eleven he would return .