three o'clock in the
afternoon
When the train rattled out of Dover he was in the public bar of a tavern not far from the Lord Warden Hotel , fortifying himself with a brandy-and-soda after the rough passage across the Channel . Meanwhile , Sir Lucius Chesney , seated in a first-class carriage , was regarding with an ecstatic expression the one piece of luggage that he had refused to trust to the van . This was a flat leather case , and it contained something of much greater importance than the dress-suit for which it was intended . Dover was honored by Mr. Hawker 's presence until three o'clock in the afternoon , and he took advantage of the intervening couple of hours to eat a hearty meal and to count his scanty store of money , after which he dozed on a bench in the restaurant until roused by a waiter . There are two railway stations in the town , and he chose the inner one . He found an empty third-class compartment , and his relief was manifest when the train pulled out . He produced a short briar-root pipe , and stuffed it with the last shreds of French Caporal tobacco that remained in his pouch .