a quarter before twelve
`` Your true partner , `` J. PINKERTON . '' Number two was in a different style : -- `` MY DEAREST LOUDON , -- How am I to prepare you for this dire intelligence ? O , dear me , it will strike you to the earth . The flat has gone forth ; our firm went bust at a quarter before twelve . It was a bill of Bradley 's -LRB- for two hundred dollars -RRB- that brought these vast operations to a close , and evolved liabilities of upwards of two hundred and fifty thousand . O , the shame and pity of it , and you but three weeks gone ! Loudon , do n't blame your partner ; if human hands and brains could have sufficed I would have held the thing together .