nine o'clock
`` Twenty minutes , '' George replied ; remembered the landlady had overnight told him she was a little deaf ; on a louder note bawled : `` Twenty minutes , Mrs. Pinner ! '' Mrs. Pinner , after hesitation , remarked : `` Ready now ? Very well , mister '' ; pushed a newspaper beneath the door ; shuffled down the stairs . In the course of his brief negotiations with Mrs. Pinner upon the previous evening , George , in response to the proud information that the paper-boy arrived at nine o'clock every morning on a motor bicycle , had bellowed that he would have the _ Daily _ . For old Bill 's sake he had ordered it ; with friendly curiosity to see Bill 's new associations he now withdrew his legs from beneath the Rose of Sharon ; hopped out of bed ; opened the paper . Upon `` Country House Outrage '' George alighted plump ; with goggle eyes , scalp creeping , blood freezing , read through to the last `` Catchy Clue '' ; aghast sank upon his bed . It had got into the papers !