about eleven o'clock in the morning
This order of mouthfuls had been explained over and over again to the family , and if they felt that he was in a more than usually terrible mood , and if they felt his gaze upon them , the family to some extent submitted . Neither Mrs. Iden nor Amaryllis , however , could ever educate their palates into this fixed sequence of feeding ; and , if Iden was not in a very awful and Jovelike mood , they wandered about irregularly in their eating . When the dinner was over -LRB- and , indeed , before it began -RRB- they had a way of visiting the larder , and `` picking '' little fragments of pies , or cold fowl , even a cold potato , the smallest mug -- a quarter of a pint of the Goliath ale between them , or , if it was to be had , a sip of port wine . These women were very irrational in their feeding ; they actually put vinegar on cold cabbage ; they gloated over a fragment of pickled salmon about eleven o'clock in the morning . They had a herring sometimes for tea -- the smell of it cooking sent the master into fits of indignation , he abominated it so , but they were so hardened and lost to righteousness they always repeated the offence next time the itinerant fish-dealer called . You could not drum them into good solid , straightforward eating . They generally had a smuggled bit of pastry to eat in the kitchen after dinner , for Mr. Iden considered that no one could need a second course after first-rate mutton and forty-folds .