one o'clock
The upper classes have so many other amusements that _ das Essen _ ceases to be one , and they are as thin as all the rest of the world ; but if the curious wish to see how very largely it fills the lives , or that part of their lives that they reserve for pleasure , of the middle classes , it is a good plan to go to seaside places during the months of July and August , when the schools close , and the _ bourgeoisie _ realises the dream in which it has been indulging the whole year , of hotel life with a tremendous dinner every day at one o'clock . The April baby was a weak little creature in her first years , and the doctor ordered as specially bracing a seaside resort frequented solely by the middle classes , and there for three succeeding years I took her ; and while she rolled on the sands and grew brown and lusty , I was dull , and fell to watching the other tourists . Their time , it appeared , was spent in ruminating over the delights of the meal that was eaten , and in preparing their bodies by gentlest exercise for the delights of the meal that was to come . They passed their mornings on the sands , the women doing fancy work in order that they might look busy , and the men strolling aimlessly about near them with field-glasses , and nautical caps , and long cloaks of a very dreadful pattern reaching to their heels and making them look like large women , called Havelocks , -- all of them waiting with more or less open eagerness for one o'clock , the great moment to which they had been looking forward ever since the day before , to arrive . They used to file in when the bell rang with a sort of silent solemnity , a contemplative collectedness , which is best described by the word _ recueillement _ , and ate all the courses , however many there were , in a hot room full of flies and sunlight . The dinner lasted a good hour and a half , and at the end of that time they would begin to straggle out again , flushed and using toothpicks as they strolled to the tables under the trees , where the exhausted waiters would presently bring them breakfast-cups of coffee and cakes . They lingered about an hour over this , and then gradually disappeared to their rooms , where they slept , I suppose , for from then till about six a death-like stillness reigned in the place and April and I had it all to ourselves .