four o'clock
`` You must take your legs more for granted , dear Nicolete , '' I summoned courage to say . `` The nonchalance of the legs is the first lesson to be learnt in such a masquerade as this . You must regard them as so much bone and iron , rude skeleton joints and shins , as though they were the bones of the great elk or other extinct South Kensington specimen , '' -- `` not , '' I added in my heart , `` as the velvet and ivory which they are . '' We had agreed to start with the sun on the morrow , so as to get clear of possible Peeping Toms ; and when good-nights had been said , and I was once more swinging towards my inn , it seemed but an hour or two , as indeed it was , before I heard four o'clock drowsily announced through my bedroom door , and before I was once more striding along that river-bank all dew-silvered with last night 's moonlight , the sun rubbing his great eye on the horizon , the whole world yawning through dainty bed-clothes of mist , and here and there a copse-full of birds congratulating themselves on their early rising . Nicolete was not quite ready , so I had to go listen to the lark , about whom , alas ! I could find nothing to say to my pocket-book , before Nicolete , armed cap-a-pie with stick and knapsack , appeared at the door of her chalet . The Obstacle was there to see us start .