twelve o'clock
I walked on some butter tubs in the back room and spun around on a whirling stool that stood in front of a high desk and succeeded in the difficult feat of tipping over a bottle of ink without getting any on myself . I covered the multitude of my sins on the desk with a newspaper and sat down quietly in a chair . By and by I asked , `` Are you ` most ready to go ? '' `` Yes -- come on -- it 's after twelve o'clock , '' said Mr. Dunkelberg . `` Sally will be back from school now . '' My conscience got the better of me and I confessed about the ink bottle and was forgiven . So we walked to the big house of the Dunkelbergs and I could hear my heart beating when we turned in at the gate -- the golden gate of my youth it must have been , for after I had passed it I thought no more as a child .