ten o'clock
With a flourishing crescendo finale Adrian Brownwell entered the dark stairway and went down into the street . Barclay turned quickly to his work as if to avoid meditation . The scratch of his pen and the murmur of the water on the roof grew louder and louder as the evening waxed old . And out on the hill , out on Lincoln Avenue , the rain descended , and the floods came , and the winds blew and beat upon that house -- that stately house of a father 's pride and -- At ten o'clock John Barclay heard a light footstep and a rattling cane upon the stair , and Brownwell , a human whirligig of gay gestures , came tripping into the room . `` A pen , a pen , '' -- he cried , `` my kingdom for a pen . '' He was tugging at his gloves as he spoke , and in the clatter that he made , Barclay found the blank note and pushed it toward the table 's edge to Brownwell , who put his ornate copy-book signature upon it with a flourish . When he had gone , Barclay wrote a note to Jane telling her of Molly 's engagement to Brownwell , and then he sat posting his books , and figuring up his accounts .