eight o'clock
We took our noon meal of fried trout one day at the Plow Inn , in a very pretty village -LRB- Ottenhoefen -RRB- , and then went into the public room to rest and smoke . There we found nine or ten Black Forest grandees assembled around a table . They were the Common Council of the parish . They had gathered there at eight o'clock that morning to elect a new member , and they had now been drinking beer four hours at the new member 's expense . They were men of fifty or sixty years of age , with grave good-natured faces , and were all dressed in the costume made familiar to us by the Black Forest stories ; broad , round-topped black felt hats with the brims curled up all round ; long red waistcoats with large metal buttons , black alpaca coats with the waists up between the shoulders . There were no speeches , there was but little talk , there were no frivolities ; the Council filled themselves gradually , steadily , but surely , with beer , and conducted themselves with sedate decorum , as became men of position , men of influence , men of manure . We had a hot afternoon tramp up the valley , along the grassy bank of a rushing stream of clear water , past farmhouses , water-mills , and no end of wayside crucifixes and saints and Virgins .