twelve
o’clock
Two pompously uniformed messengers waited listlessly in this apartment . The room was furnished with a stately dignity , and had in the middle of it a big green baize-covered table with the massive white metal inkpots and antiquated sandboxes natural to a new but romantic monarchy . It was the king 's council chamber and about it now , in attitudes of suspended intrigue , stood the half-dozen ministers who constituted his cabinet . They had been summoned for twelve o'clock , but still at half-past twelve the king loitered in the balcony and seemed to be waiting for some news that did not come . The king and his minister had talked at first in whispers ; they had fallen silent , for they found little now to express except a vague anxiety . Away there on the mountain side were the white metal roofs of the long farm buildings beneath which the bomb factory and the bombs were hidden . -LRB- The chemist who had made all these for the king had died suddenly after the declaration of Brissago . -RRB-