two a.m.
The occasion I am about to recall was specially interesting to me , as it was the first athletic meeting in which I , a small boy just entering my teens , ever figured . I was only down to run in one of the races , and that was the three-legged race ; and yet I believe there was not a boy in the school so excited at the prospect of these sports as I was . I thought the time would never come , and was in positive despair when on the day before it a little white cloud ventured to appear in the blue sky . A wet day , so I thought , would have been as great a calamity as losing the whole circle of my relatives , and almost as bad as having my favourite dog stolen , or my fishing-rod smashed ; and I made a regular fool of myself in the morning of the eventful day by getting up first at two a.m. , then at three , then at four , and four or five times more , to take observations out of the window , till at last my bedfellow declared he would stand it no longer , and that since I was up , I should stay up . Ah ! he was an unsympathetic duffer , and knew nothing of the raptures of winning a three-legged race . Well , the day was a splendid one after all -- a little hot , perhaps , but the ground was in grand order , and hosts of people would be sure to turn up .