Six o'clock
There is , assuredly , little mesmeric relation between the expecting host and the lingering guest , or we should not witness all that we do of our friends ' unpunctuality in this life . What a want of sympathy between the feverish impatience of the one and the careless dalliance of the other ! Not that we intend this censure to apply to the case before us , for Haggerstone had not the very remotest conception of the honors that awaited him , and jogged along his dusty road with no greater desire to be at the end of the journey than was fairly justifiable in one who travelled with German post-horses and Foglass for a companion . Six o'clock came , and , after another hour of fretful anxiety , it struck seven . By this time beef had become carbon , and fowls were like specimens of lava ; the fish was reduced to the state of a `` purée , '' while everything meant to assume the flinty resistance of ice was calmly settling down into a fluid existence . Many an architectural device of poor Martha 's genius was doomed to the fate of her other `` castles , '' and towers and minarets of skilful shape dropped off one by one , like the hopes of her childhood . All the telegraphic announcements from the kitchen were of disasters , but Mrs. Ricketts received the tidings with a Napoleonic calmness ; and it was only when warned by the gathering darkness over Dalton * s brow that she thought it wiser to `` give in . ''