ten
o'clock in the morning
If you have been a soldier for only six months , your respect for your old chiefs , for those whom you have seen in the very front under fire , always remains . I was ashamed of my country for permitting such indignities . One circumstance I shall never forget : it was the last of January , 1815 , when two of these half-pay officers -- one was a large , austere , gray-haired man , known as Colonel Falconette , who appeared to have served in the infantry , the other was short and thick and they called him Commandant Margarot , and he still wore his hussar whiskers -- came to us and proposed to sell a splendid watch . It might have been ten o'clock in the morning . I can see them now as they came gravely in , the colonel with his high collar , and the other one with his head down between his shoulders . The watch was a gold one , with double case ; a repeater which marked the seconds , and was wound up only once in eight days . I had never seen such a fine one .