noon
But the real objection to your argument , which has only , I admit , occurred to me since I have been out of the room , is that it does not merely presuppose a Zulu truth apart from the facts , but infers that the discovery of it is absolutely impeded by the facts . '' `` I am crushed , '' said Basil , and sat down to laugh , while the professor 's sister retired to her room , possibly to laugh , possibly not . It was extremely late when we left the Chadds , and it is an extremely long and tiresome journey from Shepherd 's Bush to Lambeth . This may be our excuse for the fact that we -LRB- for I was stopping the night with Grant -RRB- got down to breakfast next day at a time inexpressibly criminal , a time , in point of fact , close upon noon . Even to that belated meal we came in a very lounging and leisurely fashion . Grant , in particular , seemed so dreamy at table that he scarcely saw the pile of letters by his plate , and I doubt if he would have opened any of them if there had not lain on the top that one thing which has succeeded amid modern carelessness in being really urgent and coercive -- a telegram . This he opened with the same heavy distraction with which he broke his egg and drank his tea .