nine o'clock
They reached home in time for dinner . During the meal Mrs. Dangerfield asked how they had been spending the time since tea ; and the Terror said , quite truthfully , that they had been for a bicycle ride . She did not press him to be more particular in his account of their doings , though from Erebus ' air of subdued excitement and expectancy she was aware that some important enterprise was in hand ; she had no desire to put any strain on the Terror 's uncommon power of polite evasion . She was not at all surprised when , at nine o'clock , she went out into the garden and called to them that it was bedtime , to find that they were not within hearing . She told herself that she would be lucky if she got them to bed by ten . But she would have been surprised , indeed , had she seen them , half an hour earlier , slip out of the back door , in a condition of exemplary tidiness , dressed in their Sunday best . They wheeled their bicycles out of the cats ' home quietly , mounted , rode quickly down the road till they were out of hearing of the house , and then slackened their pace in order to reach their destination cool and tidy .