the hour of nine
But many American papers seized on the challenge as a great event ; and the Sun threw the shadow of Mr Boulnois quite gigantically across its pages . By the paradox already noted , articles of valuable intelligence and enthusiasm were presented with headlines apparently written by an illiterate maniac , headlines such as `` Darwin Chews Dirt ; Critic Boulnois says He Jumps the Shocks '' -- or `` Keep Catastrophic , says Thinker Boulnois . '' And Mr Calhoun Kidd , of the Western Sun , was bidden to take his butterfly tie and lugubrious visage down to the little house outside Oxford where Thinker Boulnois lived in happy ignorance of such a title . That fated philosopher had consented , in a somewhat dazed manner , to receive the interviewer , and had named the hour of nine that evening . The last of a summer sunset clung about Cumnor and the low wooded hills ; the romantic Yankee was both doubtful of his road and inquisitive about his surroundings ; and seeing the door of a genuine feudal old-country inn , The Champion Arms , standing open , he went in to make inquiries . In the bar parlour he rang the bell , and had to wait some little time for a reply to it . The only other person present was a lean man with close red hair and loose , horsey-looking clothes , who was drinking very bad whisky , but smoking a very good cigar .