ten minutes to eight
But you can not expect young ladies to take you about . '' `` No ? '' said Macleod , gravely ; `` that is a great pity . '' Mr. Ogilvie , who , with all his knowledge of the world , and of wines and cookery , and women , and what not , had sometimes an uneasy consciousness that his companion was laughing at him , here proposed that they should have a cigar before walking up to the Piccadilly Theatre ; but as it was now ten minutes to eight , Macleod resolutely refused . He begged to be considered a country person , anxious to see the piece from the beginning . And so they put on their light top-coats over their evening dress and walked up to the theatre . A distant sound of music , an odor of escaped gas , a perilous descent of a corkscrew staircase , a drawing aside of heavy curtains , and then a blaze of yellow light shining within this circular building , on its red satin and gilt plaster , and on the spacious picture of a blue Italian lake , with peacocks on the wide stone terraces .