eleven at night
_ '' This gaseous mood , athletic , amatory or otherwise -LRB- the amatory ones were the worst -RRB- , usually faded slowly , like the light from the setting sun or an exhausted coal in the grate , about the end of Puffin 's second tumbler , and the gentlemen after that were usually somnolent , but occasionally laid the foundation for some disagreement next day , which they were too sleepy to go into now . Major Flint by this time would have had some five small glasses of whisky -LRB- equivalent , as he bitterly observed , to one in pre-war days -RRB- , and as he measured his next with extreme care and a slightly jerky movement , would announce it as being his night-cap , though you would have thought he had plenty of night-caps on already . Puffin correspondingly took a thimbleful more -LRB- the thimble apparently belonging to some housewife of Anak -RRB- , and after another half-hour of sudden single snores and startings awake again , of pipes frequently lit and immediately going out , the guest , still perfectly capable of coherent speech and voluntary motion in the required direction , would stumble across the dark cobbles to his house , and doors would be very carefully closed for fear of attracting the attention of the lady who at this period of the evening was usually known as `` Old Mappy . '' The two were perfectly well aware of the sympathetic interest that Old Mappy took in all that concerned them , and that she had an eye on their evening séances was evidenced by the frequency with which the corner of her blind in the window of the garden-room was raised between , say , half-past nine and eleven at night . They had often watched with giggles the pencil of light that escaped , obscured at the lower end by the outline of Old Mappy 's head , and occasionally drank to the `` Guardian Angel . '' Guardian Angel , in answer to direct inquiries , had been told by Major Benjy during the last month that he worked at his diaries on three nights in the week and went to bed early on the others , to the vast improvement of his mental grasp . `` And on Sunday night , dear Major Benjy ? ''