eight o’clock
Steerforth , very much amused at my having been put into forty-four , laughed again , and clapped me on the shoulder again , and invited me to breakfast with him next morning at ten o'clock -- an invitation I was only too proud and happy to accept . It being now pretty late , we took our candles and went upstairs , where we parted with friendly heartiness at his door , and where I found my new room a great improvement on my old one , it not being at all musty , and having an immense four-post bedstead in it , which was quite a little landed estate . Here , among pillows enough for six , I soon fell asleep in a blissful condition , and dreamed of ancient Rome , Steerforth , and friendship , until the early morning coaches , rumbling out of the archway underneath , made me dream of thunder and the gods . When the chambermaid tapped at my door at eight o'clock , and informed me that my shaving-water was outside , I felt severely the having no occasion for it , and blushed in my bed . The suspicion that she laughed too , when she said it , preyed upon my mind all the time I was dressing ; and gave me , I was conscious , a sneaking and guilty air when I passed her on the staircase , as I was going down to breakfast . I was so sensitively aware , indeed , of being younger than I could have wished , that for some time I could not make up my mind to pass her at all , under the ignoble circumstances of the case ; but , hearing her there with a broom , stood peeping out of window at King Charles on horseback , surrounded by a maze of hackney-coaches , and looking anything but regal in a drizzling rain and a dark-brown fog , until I was admonished by the waiter that the gentleman was waiting for me . It was not in the coffee-room that I found Steerforth expecting me , but in a snug private apartment , red-curtained and Turkey-carpeted , where the fire burnt bright , and a fine hot breakfast was set forth on a table covered with a clean cloth ; and a cheerful miniature of the room , the fire , the breakfast , Steerforth , and all , was shining in the little round mirror over the sideboard .