nine o'clock
From that on there were alternating chills and fever . If Colonel Duxbury should arrive and resume the reins of management before Tom Gordon should reappear , all might yet be well . If not , -- the alternative impaired the bookkeeper 's appetite , and there were hot nights in June when he slept badly . When Tom 's advent preceded the earliest date named by Mr. Farley by a broad fortnight or more , the bookkeeper missed other of his meals , and one night fear and a sharp premonition of close-pressing disaster laid cold hands on him ; and nine o'clock found him skulking in the great train shed at the railway station , a ticket to Canada in his pocket , a goodly sum of the company 's money tightly buckled in a safety-belt next to his skin -- all things ready for flight save one , the courage requisite to the final step-taking . The following morning the premonition became a certainty . In the Gordonia mail there was a note from the younger Gordon , directing him to come to the office of the pipe foundry , bringing the cash-book and ledger for a year whose number was written out in letters of fire in the bookkeeper 's brain . He went , again lacking the courage either to refuse or to disappear , and found Gordon waiting for him .