Eleven o'clock
I led them on to speak of the President , rejoicing when I elicited open murmurs and covert threats at his base ingratitude to the men on whose support his power rested . They had not been paid for six months , and were ripe for any mischief . I was more than once tempted to forestall the colonel and begin the revolution on my own account ; only my inability to produce before their eyes any arguments of the sort they would listen to restrained me . Eleven o'clock had come and gone . The senior captain had proposed the President 's health . It was drunk in sullen silence ; I was the only man who honored it by rising from his seat . The major had proposed the army , and they had drunk deep to their noble selves .