three o'clock
She drove on without replying to me , and as I entered my office , the faces of Miss Mitty and of Sally were confused into one by my disordered mind . The run had already started -- a depositor , who had withdrawn ten thousand dollars after reading of the failure of the Darlington Trust Company , had been paid off first , and following him the line had come , crawling like black ants on the pavement . As I entered the doors , it seemed to me that the face of each man or woman in the throng stood out , separate and distinct , as though an electric search-light had passed over it ; and I saw one and all , frightened , satisfied , or merely ludicrous , with a vividness of perception which failed me when I remembered the features of my own wife . `` We can pay them off slowly till three o'clock , '' said Bingley , the vice-president , whom I found , with five or six of the directors , already in my office . `` I 've got only one paying teller 's window open . The trouble , of course , began with the small accounts , of which we carry such a blamed lot . Mark my words , it is the little depositor that endangers a bank . ''