a quarter to eleven
`` I never remember feeling so full of beans as I did the next morning . I could have bluffed my way across Europe with a barrel of whiskey on a lead . I felt ready for anything . Sharp at a quarter to eleven I was at the station , and one minute later a porter , with the physique of a blacksmith , had the box on his shoulder and my dressing-case in his hand . `` It was as he was preparing to lay his spoils at the feet of the registration-monger that my bearer trod upon a banana-skin ... . To say that he took a toss , conveys nothing at all . It was the sort of fall you dream of -- almost too good to be true .