three in the afternoon
For it befell in the pleasant short December days , when the wind always blows from the south-west , till Old Father Christmas comes and spreads the great white table-cloth , ready for little boys and girls to give the birds their Christmas dinner of crumbs -- it befell -LRB- to go on -RRB- in the pleasant December days , that Sir John was so busy hunting that nobody at home could get a word out of him . Four days a week he hunted , and very good sport he had ; and the other two he went to the bench and the board of guardians , and very good justice he did ; and , when he got home in time , he dined at five ; for he hated this absurd new fashion of dining at eight in the hunting season , which forces a man to make interest with the footman for cold beef and beer as soon as he comes in , and so spoil his appetite , and then sleep in an arm-chair in his bedroom , all stiff and tired , for two or three hours before he can get his dinner like a gentleman . And do you be like Sir John , my dear little man , when you are your own master ; and , if you want either to read hard or ride hard , stick to the good old Cambridge hours of breakfast at eight and dinner at five ; by which you may get two days ' work out of one . But , of course , if you find a fox at three in the afternoon and run him till dark , and leave off twenty miles from home , why you must wait for your dinner till you can get it , as better men than you have done . Only see that , if you go hungry , your horse does not ; but give him his warm gruel and beer , and take him gently home , remembering that good horses do n't grow on the hedge like blackberries . It befell -LRB- to go on a second time -RRB- that Sir John , hunting all day , and dining at five , fell asleep every evening , and snored so terribly that all the windows in Harthover shook , and the soot fell down the chimneys . Whereon My Lady , being no more able to get conversation out of him than a song out of a dead nightingale , determined to go off and leave him , and the doctor , and Captain Swinger the agent , to snore in concert every evening to their hearts ' content .