four o'clock
The good widow enjoyed particularly the difficulty which my precise position , with regard to her and her daughter , threw the different innkeepers on the road into , sometimes supposing me to be her husband , sometimes her son , and once her son-in-law ; which very alarming conjecture brought a crimson tinge to the fair daughter 's cheek , an expression , which , in my ignorance , I thought looked very like an inclination to faint in my arms . At length we reached London , and having been there safely installed at `` Mivart 's , '' I sallied forth to present my letter to the Horse Guards , and obtain our passport for the continent . `` Number nine , Poland-street , sir '' said the waiter , as I inquired the address of the French Consul . Having discovered that my interview with the commander-in-chief was appointed for four o'clock , I determined to lose no time , but make every possible arrangement for leaving London in the morning . A cab quietly conveyed me to the door of the Consul , around which stood several other vehicles , of every shape and fashion , while in the doorway were to be seen numbers of people , thronging and pressing , like the Opera pit on a full night . Into the midst of this assemblage I soon thrust myself , and , borne upon the current , at length reached a small back parlour , filled also with people ; a door opening into another small room in the front , showed a similar mob there , with the addition of a small elderly man , in a bag wig and spectacles , very much begrimed with snuff , and speaking in a very choleric tone to the various applicants for passports , who , totally ignorant of French , insisted upon interlarding their demands with an occasional stray phrase , making a kind of tesselated pavement of tongues , which would have shamed Babel . Nearest to the table at which the functionary sat , stood a mustachoed gentleman , in a blue frock and white trowsers , a white hat jauntily set upon one side of his head , and primrose gloves .