fifty-three minutes after four
`` No ; for Olivia 's sake , at least , we shall be friends . '' I went home and studied the time-table . If you are one of those captious people who must verify by the calendar every new moon you read of in a book , and if you are pained to discover the historian lifting anchor and spreading sail contrary to the reckonings of the nautical almanac , I beg to call your attention to these items from the time-table of the Mid-Western and Southern Railway for December , 1901 . The south-bound express passed Annandale at exactly fifty-three minutes after four P. M . It was scheduled to reach Cincinnati at eleven o'clock sharp . These items are , I trust , sufficiently explicit . To the student of morals and motives I will say a further word .