ABOUT twelve o’clock
A Tale Containing an Allegory . The gods do bear and will allow in kings The things which they abhor in rascal routes . _ Buckhurst 's Tragedy of Ferrex and Porrex . _ ABOUT twelve o'clock , one night in the month of October , and during the chivalrous reign of the third Edward , two seamen belonging to the crew of the `` Free and Easy , '' a trading schooner plying between Sluys and the Thames , and then at anchor in that river , were much astonished to find themselves seated in the tap-room of an ale-house in the parish of St. Andrews , London -- which ale-house bore for sign the portraiture of a `` Jolly Tar . '' The room , although ill-contrived , smoke-blackened , low-pitched , and in every other respect agreeing with the general character of such places at the period -- was , nevertheless , in the opinion of the grotesque groups scattered here and there within it , sufficiently well adapted to its purpose . Of these groups our two seamen formed , I think , the most interesting , if not the most conspicuous . The one who appeared to be the elder , and whom his companion addressed by the characteristic appellation of `` Legs , '' was at the same time much the taller of the two .