five o'clock
If he could only have been content with this much of success ! But he must needs think he could improve upon it -- reinforce it . His remark about the cup of tea had half-reference to its appearance on the horizon ; or , rather on the little carved-oak table near the window , whose flaps were being accommodated for its reception as he spoke . The dwellers in this part of the country considered five o'clock tea at this time an invention of their own , and were rather vain of it . Another decade made it a national institution . `` If there is one thing I enjoy more than another , '' he said , `` it is a copper urn that boils furiously by magic of its own accord . When I was a kid our old cook Ursley used to allow me to come into the kitchen and see the red-hot iron taken out of the fire and dropped into the inner soul of ours , which was glorious . ''