seven
o'clock
Perhaps the great accumulation of my debts in this way , the very despair of ever paying them all , may be one reason -LRB- as is often the case , I believe , in pecuniary obligations -RRB- why I so seldom pay any ; then , whether I do much or not , I have generally plenty to do ; then again , I so dearly love to do nothing ; then , summer or winter , the weather is commonly too cold for an open carriage , and I am eminently a catch-cold person ; so that between wind and rain , business and idleness , no lady in the county with so many places that she ought to go to , goes to so few : and yet it was from the extraordinary event of my happening to leave home three days following , that my present mystification took its rise . Thus the case stands . Last Thursday morning , being the 23rd day of this present month of June , I received a note from my kind friend and neighbour , Mrs. Dunbar , requesting very earnestly that my father and myself would dine that evening at the Hall , apologising for the short notice , as arising out of the unexpected arrival of a guest from London , and the equally unexpected absence of the General , which threw her -LRB- she was pleased to say -RRB- upon our kindness to assist in entertaining her visitor . At seven o'clock , accordingly , we repaired to General Dunbar 's , and found our hostess surrounded by her fine boys and girls , conversing with a gentleman , whom she immediately introduced to us as Mr. Thompson . Mr. Thompson was a gentleman of about -- Pshaw ! nothing is so unpolite as to go guessing how many years a man may have lived in this most excellent world , especially when it is perfectly clear , from his dress and demeanour , that the register of his birth is the last document relating to himself which he would care to see produced . Mr. Thompson , then , was a gentleman of no particular age ; not quite so young as he had been , but still in very tolerable preservation , being pretty exactly that which is understood by the phrase an old beau .