a quarter past nine
`` Oh , no . We have a very little quiet place off the Euston Road . '' The surgeon pressed the spring of his repeater and listened to the little tings which told him the hour . It was a quarter past nine . He calculated the distances , and the short time which it would take him to perform so trivial an operation . He ought to reach Lady Sannox by ten o'clock . Through the fogged windows he saw the blurred gas-lamps dancing past , with occasionally the broader glare of a shop front .