nine o'clock
The Nag 's Head , in St. James 's Street !!! Now , though nobody would be in the least surprised to have read or heard of the Nag 's Head in the Borough , yet there is probably not a single reader who will see this collocation of the `` Nag 's Head '' with `` St. James 's Street '' without an exclamation , or at least a feeling of surprise , at it being possible there should ever have been such a thing in St. James 's Street at all -- that is to say , not a nag 's head , either horsically or hobbyhorsically speaking , but tavernistically ; for be it known to all men , that the Nag 's Head here mentioned was an inn or tavern actually in the very middle of the royal and fashionable street called St. James 's . One might write a whole chapter upon the variations and mutations of the names of inns , and inquire curiously whether their modification in various places and at various times depends merely upon fashion , or whether it is produced by some really existing but latent sympathy between peculiar names , as applied to inns , and particular circumstances , affecting localities , times , seasons , and national character . Having already touched upon this subject , however , though with but a slight and allusive sentence or two , in reference to our friend the Green Dragon , and being at this moment pressed for time and room , we shall say no more upon the subject here , but enter at once into the Nag 's Head , and lead the reader by the hand to the door of a certain large apartment , which , at about half-past nine o'clock , on the night we have just been speaking of , was well nigh as full as it could hold . The people whom it contained were of various descriptions , but most of them were gentlemanly men enough in their appearance , and these were ranged round little tables in parties of five or six , or sometimes more . It can not , indeed , be said that their occupations were particularly edifying . Dice , backgammon-boards , and cards were spread on many of the tables ; punch smoked around with a very fragrant odour ; and whatever might have been the nature of the conversation in general , the oaths and expletives , with which it was interlarded from time to time , spoke not very well for either the morality or the eloquence of our ancestors : for such , indeed , I must call these gentlemen , forming as they did part of the great ancestral body of a hundred and fifty years ago ; though I devoutly hope and pray that none of my own immediate progenitors happened to be amongst the number there assembled .