two o'clock in the morning
But instead of answering or arguing with him I put his hat in his hand and held the portière , waiting for him to pass through . I have often thought that if the decorous and somewhat ponderous figure of Mr. John Lockwood had invaded his own offices on that particular night , he would have been persuaded of the fact that he was confronting two madmen . For , once we had gained access to those offices and locked the door behind us , I began over again what I had so inadequately attempted in my own library . During the earlier part of my effort to Belascoize a slumbering mental idea into some approximation to life , I tried to remember my surroundings and the fact that the hour was the unseemly one of almost two o'clock in the morning . But as I seated Criswell at his own office desk and did my utmost to galvanize his tired brain into some semblance of the rôle I had laid out for it , I think he rather lost track of time and place . At the end of ten minutes my face was moist with sweat , and a wave of utter exhaustion swept through me as I saw that , after all my struggle , nothing in that minutely enacted little drama had struck a responsive chord in either his imagination or his memory . `` You do n't get anything ? ''