eight o’clock
He stipulated also for the presence of a competent stage manager through the whole week , and promised instructions with respect to scenery , and so forth , later on . In his enthusiasm he drew up a list of critics and authors to invite , and he and Leland straightway began to study their respective parts . It was getting near the end of August now , and the evenings began to close in rapidly . The river was quite deserted as a rule by eight o'clock , and then the two friends used to rehearse one especial scene . There was a quarrel in this scene which , but for the intervening hand of the deux ex machinâ , bade fair to be deadly . When , after repeated trials , they warmed to their work , and got hold of something like the passion of their part , a listener might have acquitted them of all play-acting , and broken in himself to prevent bloodshed . For they both started from the assumption that the tones of the stage must be gradually built up into power from those used in ordinary speech , and so they avoided the least taint of staginess , and were on their way to become rather better actors than the best we have just now .