ten o'clock
When shall I be there ? '' `` At eight o'clock , please , '' said Rogers , rising , without apparent alarm at his threat , if it was a threat . `` And ask for me ; I 've taken a room at the hotel for the present . '' `` I wo n't keep you five minutes when I get there , '' said Lapham ; but he did not come away till ten o'clock . It appeared to him as if the very devil was in it . The Englishmen treated his downright refusal to sell as a piece of bluff , and talked on as though it were merely the opening of the negotiation . When he became plain with them in his anger , and told them why he would not sell , they seemed to have been prepared for this as a stroke of business , and were ready to meet it .