ten o'clock
`` To-day and Saturdays , ten o'clock . I 'm sorry , Mr. St. George , but I 'm a very busy man and now -- '' `` Good-by , '' St. George cried triumphantly . In half an hour he was at the Grand Central station , boarding a train for the Reformatory town . It was a little after ten o'clock when he rang the bell at the house presided over by Chillingworth 's `` rabble of wild eagles . '' The Reformatory , a boastful , brick building set in grounds that seemed freshly starched and ironed , had a discoloured door that would have frowned and threatened of its own accord , even without the printed warnings pasted to its panels stating that no application for admission , with or without permits , would be honoured upon any day save Thursday . This was Tuesday . Presently , the chains having fallen within after a feudal rattling , an old man who looked born to the business of snapping up a drawbridge in lieu of a taste for any other exclusiveness peered at St. George through absurd smoked glasses , cracked quite across so that his eyes resembled buckles .