a quarter to ten
He was reminded of his great ill-gotten possession . I said that Raffles had just mentioned it , and that set him off . With the confidential garrulity of a man who has dined too well , he plunged into his darling topic , and I looked past him at the clock . It was only a quarter to ten . In common decency I could not go yet . So there I sat -LRB- we were still at port -RRB- and learnt what had originally fired my host 's ambition to possess what he was pleased to call a `` real , genuine , twin-screw , double-funnelled , copper-bottomed Old Master '' ; it was to `` go one better '' than some rival legislator of pictorial proclivities . But even an epitome of his monologue would be so much weariness ; suffice it that it ended inevitably in the invitation I had dreaded all the evening .