quarter after eleven
`` Dare to bandy words with me , '' said Dr. Cairn , with icy coolness , `` answer me back but once again , and before God I 'll strike you dead ! '' Ferrara sat silent , clutching at the arms of his chair , and not daring to raise his eyes . For ten magnetic seconds they stayed so , then again Dr. Cairn turned , and this time walked out . The clocks had been chiming the quarter after eleven as he had entered Antony Ferrara 's chambers , and some had not finished their chimes when his son , choking , calling wildly upon Heaven to aid him , had fallen in the midst of crowding , obscene things , and , in the instant of his fall , had found the room clear of the waving antennæ , the beady eyes , and the beetle shapes . The whole horrible phantasmagoria -- together with the odour of ancient rottenness -- faded like a fevered dream , at the moment that Dr. Cairn had burst in upon the creator of it . Robert Cairn stood up , weakly , trembling ; then dropped upon his knees and sobbed out prayers of thankfulness that came from his frightened soul . When a substantial legacy is divided into two shares , one of which falls to a man , young , dissolute and clever , and the other to a girl , pretty and inexperienced , there is laughter in the hells .