three o'clock in the morning
As for Mr. Courtney 's dinner , though it may doubtless have been a quiet one from his point of view , it differed considerably from such Sunday festivities as David had been accustomed to . A good deal of wine was drunk , and the conversation -LRB- a little cautious at first , on David 's account -RRB- gradually thawed into freedom . It was late when they rose from table ; and then a proposition was made to go to a certain well-known club in St. James 's Street . David went with the rest , and , for the first time in his life , played cards for money ; he lost seven hundred pounds -- more money than he had handled during the last three years -- but he kept his head , and at three o'clock in the morning drove with Courtney to the latter 's lodgings , with five hundred pounds in his pocket over and above the sum with which he had begun to play . Here was a wonderful change in his existence ; but it did not seem to him half so wonderful as his reason told him it was . It seemed natural -- as if , after much wandering , he had at last found his way into the place where he belonged . It is said that savages , educated from infancy amid civilized surroundings , will , on breathing once more their native air , tear off their clothes and become savages again .