five o’clock in the
morning
You would carry on the whole affair with tact and discretion ; and as to age , your stage experience would enable you , with a little assistance from costume , to pass muster ; besides that , I have always represented you as the very Methuselah of the corps ; and in the grey dawn of an autumnal morning -- with maiden bashfulness assisting -- the scrutiny is not likely to be a close one . So , now , your consent is alone wanting to complete the arrangements which , before this time to-morrow , shall have made me the happiest of mortals . '' Having expressed , in fitting terms , my full sense of obligation for the delicate flattery with which he pictured me as `` Old Lorrequer '' to the Lady , I begged a more detailed account of his plan , which I shall shorten for my reader 's sake , by the following brief expose . A post-chaise and four was to be in waiting at five o'clock in the morning to convey me to Sir Alfred Jonson 's residence , about twelve miles distant . There I was to be met by a lady at the gate-lodge , who was subsequently to accompany me to a small village on the Nore , where an old college friend of Curzon 's happened to reside , as parson , and by whom the treaty was to be concluded . This was all simple and clear enough -- the only condition necessary to insure success being punctuality , particularly on the lady 's part . As to mine I readily promised my best aid and warmest efforts in my friend 's behalf .