Nine P.M.
Immediately after the meal , Hal , on pretext of beating the storm to the office , left . His father took his forebodings to the club and attempted to lose them along with several rubbers of absent-minded bridge . Meantime the woman for whom his loyalty was concerned as well as for his son , was stimulating a resolution with the slow poison of liquor around the corner from the `` Clarion '' office . Nine P.M. is slack tide in a morning newspaper office . The afternoon news is cleared up ; the night wires have not yet begun to buzz with outer-world tidings of importance ; the reporters are still afield on the evening 's assignments . As the champion short-distance sleeper of his craft , which distinction he claimed for himself without fear of successful contradiction , McGuire Ellis was wont to devote half an hour or more , beginning on the ninth stroke of the clock , to the cultivation of Morpheus . Intruders were not popular at that hour .