eleven o'clock
The twenty clerks were busily and silently at work behind their counters and gratings , and the fourteen directors were shut tight in their mahogany room . There was but little passing to and fro from the street , though now and then a half-frozen messenger came stamping in , and did his errand , with benumbed fingers , through the little windows . The tempest made business light . At eleven o'clock Fields wrote a note and sent it to the directors ' room . The boy who carried it knocked softly , and the president appeared , took the letter , and then closed the door again . Then there was a moment of almost total silence ; the clerks wrote , the leaves rattled , and it seemed as if it were an instant before an expected explosion . Presently an explosion came .