I was following the other man's rules, then.

As I said, if only they wouldn't differ so! Of course I want the best; but it's so hard to always know the best, and--" At this very inopportune moment Master Bertram took occasion to wake up, which brought even a deeper wrinkle of worry to his fond mother's forehead; for she said that, according to the clock, he should have been sleeping exactly ten and one-half more minutes, and that of course he couldn't commence the next thing until those ten and one-half minutes were up, or else his entire schedule for the day would be shattered.
So what she should do with him for those should-have-been-sleeping ten minutes and a half, she did not know.

All of which drew from Aunt Hannah the astounding exclamation of: "Oh, my grief and conscience, Billy, if you aren't the--the limit!" Which, indeed, she must have been, to have brought circumspect Aunt Hannah to the point of actually using slang..