nine in the morning
`` Your son 's case , I mean . I 've known him nearly all the time that he 's been up , and I 've always considered that he was a teetotaller from principle . Of course it would be simply absurd to attempt to conceal from you what has been the matter with him this morning . He 's been drunk , dead drunk , by about half-past nine in the morning . At the same time we must remember that when a man has been in hard training for a boat race , or anything of that sort , or if he has been reading hard on tea , which is almost as vicious a habit as alcoholism , he can get drunk on very little alcohol when the strain is taken off . In fact , I have known a man get drunk on a pint of bitter and a beef-steak ; but there does n't seem any reason of that sort for what happened this morning . Still , fortunately , that man of his knew what to do , and he 's done it -- a rather heroic remedy certainly , but one can risk that with a good constitution .