midnight
The reproach to my father , being just , he could not endure ; but instead of admitting the truth , he vowed , by Jupiter Ammon , that his boy should never be made a Miss Molly , and to school I should go , by Jupiter Ammon , next morning , plump . Now it was well known in our house , that a sentence of my father 's beginning and ending `` _ by Jupiter Ammon _ '' admitted of no reply from any mortal -- it was the stamp of fate ; no hope of any reversion of the decree : it seemed to bind even him who uttered the oath beyond his own power of revocation . My mother was convinced that even her intercession was vain ; so she withdrew , weeping , to the female apartments , where , surrounded by her maids , the decree of fate was reported , but not verbatim , after the manner of the gods and goddesses . The maids and the washerwoman , however , scolded one another very much after their manner , in a council held at midnight , about my clothes ; the result of the whole was that `` they must be found and packed ; '' and found and packed at last they were ; and the next morning , as decreed , early as Aurora streaked the east , to school I went , very little thinking of her rosy-tipped fingers . My life at school was like that of any other school-boy . I shall not record , even if I could remember , how often I was flogged when I did not deserve it , or how often I escaped when I did . Five years of my life passed away , of which I have nothing to relate but that I learned to whip a top , and to play at ball and marbles , each in their season ; that I acquired in due course the usual quantity of Greek and Latin ; and perpetrated in my time , I presume , the usual quantity of mischief .