nine o'clock
`` Trouble , you call it ? If I am caught , it means penal servitude -- New Caledonia , perhaps -- '' `` Exactly , '' he said , with the same irritating calmness ; `` and if you succeed it means four hundred francs . Take it or leave it , as you please , but be quick about it . I have no time to waste ; it is past nine o'clock already , and if you wo n't do the work , someone else will . '' For a few seconds longer I hesitated . Schemes , both varied and wild , rushed through my active brain : refuse to take this risk , and denounce the plot to the police ; refuse it , and run to warn M. de Marsan ; refuse it , and -- I had little time for reflection . My uncouth client was standing , as it were , with a pistol to my throat -- with a pistol and four hundred francs !