three p.m.
The big leather chair , so placed that it faced the light and left the lawyer in partial shadow behind his desk , had held many a strange and anxious caller in its day . Great men , men of national importance , had sat in that deep old leather chair ; but with fine passivity it yielded the same comforts to men who only thought they were important . Just now it was occupied by Mr. Hugh Podmore -- within an hour of that worthy 's arrival in the city . At three p.m. his new-found friend , Philip Kendrick , had agreed to call upon Ferguson to corroborate the story which Mr. Podmore had just finished telling and to which his auditor had listened with great intentness , that being the only indication of surprise which the practiced Mr. Ferguson permitted himself to exhibit . `` You always were pretty cock-sure of yourself , Poddy , even back in the days when we both worked on the old _ Tribune _ , '' commented Ferguson with a smirk of amusement . `` But this proposition of yours is the deckle-edged limit and no mistake . If you were anybody else I 'd have a lot of fun -- kicking you downstairs ! ''