four o'clock
Sir John had no sympathy with a generation of men and women who would rather be laughed at and despised than unnoticed . He belonged to an age wherein it was held better to be a gentleman than the object of a cheap and evanescent notoriety -- and he was at once the despair and the dread of newspaper interviewers , enterprising publishers , and tuft-hunters . He was so little known out of his own select circle that the porters in Euston Station asked each other in vain who the old swell waiting for the four o'clock `` up '' from Liverpool could be . The four o'clock was , moreover , not the first express which Sir John had met that day . His stately carriage-and-pair had pushed its way into the crowd of smaller and humbler vehicular fry earlier in the afternoon , and on that occasion also the old gentleman had indulged in a grave promenade upon the platform . He was walking up and down there now , with his hand in the small of his back , where of late he had been aware of a constant aching pain . He was very upright , however , and supremely unconscious of the curiosity aroused by his presence in the mind of the station canaille .