nine o’clock
-- a pause he filled himself by pushing his cushion under Godefroid 's feet to share it with him . `` I was then about thirty years of age , '' he said . `` It was the year ` 98 , if I remember right , -- a period when young men were forced to have the experience of men of sixty . One morning , a little before my breakfast hour , which was nine o'clock , my old housekeeper ushered in one of the few friends remaining to me after the Revolution . My first word was to ask him to breakfast . My friend -- his name was Mongenod , a fellow about twenty-eight years of age -- accepted , but he did so in an awkward manner . I had not seen him since 1793 ! ''