ten minutes to
eight
This way ! '' after which I sat still and awaited developments . There was a huge clock in one of the corners , whose loud tick filled up every interval of silence . By this clock it was just ten minutes to eight when two gentlemen -- I should say men , and coarse men at that -- crossed the open threshold and entered the house . Their appearance was more or less noteworthy -- unpleasantly so , I am obliged to add . One was red-faced and obese ; the other was tall , thin , and wiry , and showed as many seams in his face as a blighted apple . Neither of the two had anything to recommend him either in appearance or address , save a certain veneer of polite assumption as transparent as it was offensive .