twelve o'clock
I shouted , and up went the trap-door over our heads . `` Avanti , avanti , avanti ! '' cried the Italian , turning up his one-eyed face . `` Hell-to-leather , '' I translated , `` and double fare if you do it by twelve o'clock . '' But in the streets of London how is one to know the time ? In the Earl 's Court Road it had not been half-past , and at Barker 's in High Street it was but a minute later . A long half-mile a minute , that was going like the wind , and indeed we had done much of it at a gallop .