midnight
But he was more seriously thinking of what Colney Durance called ` The Mustard Plaster ' ; the satirist 's phrase for warm relations with a married fair one : and Dartrey , clear of any design to have it at his breast , was beginning to take intimations of pricks and burns . They are an almost positive cure of inflammatory internal conditions . They were really hard on him , who had none to be cured . The hour was nigh midnight . As he entered his hotel , the porter ran off to the desk in his box , and brought him a note , saying , that a lady had left it at half-past nine . Left it ? -- Then the lady could not be the alarming lady .