quarter past three
said he , with deep emotion . `` And may their flight be quick and sure ! For the fate of the world , its hope and its salvation from infinite enslavement , are whirling through the trackless wastes of air , to-night ! '' The first intimation that Flint and Waldron had of any opposition to their plans , of any revolt , of any danger , was at quarter past three on the afternoon of October 8th , 1925 . All that afternoon , busy with their final plans for the immediate extension of their system , they had been going over certain data with Herzog , receiving reports from branch managers and conferring with the Congressional committee that -- together with Dillon Slade , their secret-service tool , now also President Supple 's private secretary -- they had peremptorily summoned from Washington to receive instructions . In the more than four years that had passed since they had put Gabriel behind bars -- years fruitful in strikes and lockouts , in prostitutions of justice , in sluggings and crude massacres -- both men had altered notably . Though the National Censorship now no longer permitted any cartooning of a `` seditious '' nature , i.e. , representing any of the Air Trust notables , old Flint 's features tempted the artist 's pencil more than ever .