nine o'clock
May heaven help me for I know not what I shall do ! '' But no one listened to their great outcry , for the throngs were far too busy -- day by day , the foot-soldiers trod jauntily the highway and all exulted because the young men returning were pure and brave , sound of tooth and pink of cheek , and the young women of the land were virgins and comely both of face and of figure . So during all this time there were many adventures that happened in the great city , and , of these , several -- or perhaps one -- are here set down . At nine o'clock on the morning of the first of May , 1919 , a young man spoke to the room clerk at the Biltmore Hotel , asking if Mr. Philip Dean were registered there , and if so , could he be connected with Mr. Dean 's rooms . The inquirer was dressed in a well-cut , shabby suit . He was small , slender , and darkly handsome ; his eyes were framed above with unusually long eyelashes and below with the blue semicircle of ill health , this latter effect heightened by an unnatural glow which colored his face like a low , incessant fever . Mr. Dean was staying there .