six o'clock
They were related to the This Family and the That Family , which , as every Southerner knew , entitled them to membership in that enormous peerage which largely populated the Confederacy . This was their first experience with the charming old custom of having babies -- Mr. Button was naturally nervous . He hoped it would be a boy so that he could be sent to Yale College in Connecticut , at which institution Mr. Button himself had been known for four years by the somewhat obvious nickname of `` Cuff . '' On the September morning consecrated to the enormous event he arose nervously at six o'clock dressed himself , adjusted an impeccable stock , and hurried forth through the streets of Baltimore to the hospital , to determine whether the darkness of the night had borne in new life upon its bosom . When he was approximately a hundred yards from the Maryland Private Hospital for Ladies and Gentlemen he saw Doctor Keene , the family physician , descending the front steps , rubbing his hands together with a washing movement -- as all doctors are required to do by the unwritten ethics of their profession . Mr. Roger Button , the president of Roger Button & Co. , Wholesale Hardware , began to run toward Doctor Keene with much less dignity than was expected from a Southern gentleman of that picturesque period . `` Doctor Keene ! ''