ten
o’clock
I 'm no verra far wrang but what wi ' industry and perseverance ye may mak a wee bit siller yersel ' , laddie . '' `` It wo n't be my fault if I do n't , '' returned M. Vandeloup , gaily ; `` and Madame Midas , '' he added , mentally , `` will be an excellent person to assist me in doing so . '' Gaston Vandeloup having passed all his life in cities found that his existence on the Pactolus claim was likely to be very dreary . Day after day he arose in the morning , did his office work , ate his meals , and after a talk with Madame Midas in the evening went to bed at ten o'clock . Such Arcadian simplicity as this was not likely to suit the highly cultivated tastes he had acquired in his earlier life . As to the episode of New Caledonia M. Vandeloup dismissed it completely from his mind , for this young man never permitted his thoughts to dwell on disagreeable subjects . His experiences as a convict had been novel but not pleasant , and he looked upon the time which had elapsed since he left France in the convict ship to the day he landed on the coast of Queensland in an open boat as a bad nightmare , and would willingly have tried to treat it as such , only the constant sight of his dumb companion , Pierre Lemaire , reminded him only too vividly of the reality of his trouble .