eight o'clock
If I stay here , that little girl will be always trying to speak to me , and I shall be thrashed by the red-haired boy . If I could only manage to speak out after breakfast ! '' It was not without satisfaction that he remembered that he paid extra for `` meat for breakfast '' in his son 's school-bills , for he was beginning to look forward to meal-time with the natural desire of a young and healthy frame for nourishment . At eight o'clock the Doctor came in and announced breakfast , leading the way himself to what was known in the school as the `` Dining Hall . '' It scarcely deserved so high-sounding a name perhaps , being a long low room on the basement floor , with a big fireplace , fitted with taps , and baking ovens , which provoked the suspicion that it had begun existence as a back kitchen . The Doctor took his seat alone at a cross table forming the top of one of the two rows of tables , set with white cups and saucers , and plates well heaped with the square pieces of bread and butter , while Mrs. Grimstone with Dulcie and Tom , sat at the foot of the same row , behind two ugly urns of dull block-tin . But when Mr. Bultitude , more hungry than he had felt for years , found his place at one of the tables , he was disgusted to find upon his plate -- not , as he had confidently expected , a couple of plump poached eggs , with their appetising contrast of ruddy gold and silvery white , not a crisp and crackling sausage or a mottled omelette , not even the homely but luscious rasher , but a brace of chill forbidding sardines , lying grim and headless in bilious green oil !