twelve o'clock
`` Printed -- printed small , I need n't tell you -- but quite large enough for me to read when I signed the cursed bond . In fact I believe I did read it ; but a halfpenny a week ! Who could ever believe it would mount up like that ? But it does ; it 's right enough , and the long and short of it is that unless I pay up by twelve o'clock to-morrow the governor 's to be called in to say whether he 'll pay up for me or see me made a bankrupt under his nose . Twelve o'clock , when the match begins ! Of course they know that , and are trading on it . Only this evening I had the most insolent ultimatum , saying it was my ` dead and last chance . ' ''