the hour of three
His thoughts were so clear , and his mind so prompt and unembarrassed , that everything was arranged and ordered with the utmost precision . In the same despatch in which he bespoke a cargo of coffee , he would not forget twelve packets of sealing-wax and two hampers of Dutch tobacco pipes for his store . He would descend without difficulty from instructions to a captain who had lost his ship , to the most minute details respecting certain stove pipes which he had seen in London , and which he wished to introduce into the town hospital . But when the post had been despatched , and the hour of three -- the usual hour for dinner parties -- approached , and when the Consul had shaved himself carefully , and had applied himself to sundry pots and flasks of pomades and essences , he stepped up the broad staircase , dressed in a long-skirted blue coat with bright buttons , a closely fitting waistcoat , and a frilled shirt with a diamond breast-pin , his comely iron-grey hair slightly powdered and curled . Perhaps , too , he would be humming some French ditty of questionable propriety , thinking of the gallantries of his youth ; and as he stepped daintily forward with his shapely legs , he would sometimes indulge in a hope that knee breeches would again come into fashion . In spite of his gallantries , however , Consul Garman had been an exemplary husband , according to the standard of the times ; and when his wife died he really grieved for her , placing sundry tablets with affectionate inscriptions in those parts of the garden which were her special favourites . After her death he gave up society , so that this item of expenditure diminished perceptibly .