twenty-four
minutes to three
At intervals he gesticulated and muttered a phrase . He was making excellent progress with it and at five and twenty minutes to three he was at the end of it . The prince sat stolidly in the easy chair by the long windows . At twenty-four minutes to three the baron flung out the last damning phrase -LRB- with the appropriate splendid gesture -RRB- at his image in the looking-glass over the mantelpiece . Then he turned to beam triumphantly on his little charge . The easy chair was empty ; the prince had gone . With language far less sonorous , but more staccato , the baron bounced to the window , just in time to see his little charge disappear swiftly over the edge of the sea-wall fifty yards away .