one o'clock
The flat sea lay panting on its coasts , as if , for all its liquid sparkle , it were athirst ; and the town , under the oven of its hills , burned red-hot , like pottery in a kiln . I went and bought my tinned meat -LRB- a form of preserve quite odious to me -RRB- and strolled back disconsolately to the Parade . Occasionally , flitting past the lantern window , I would steal a side glance into the cool luminosity of my own inaccessible parlour ; and there always , reclining at her ease upon my sofa , was the ineradicable presentment of Miss Whiffle . At one o'clock I ventured to reclaim my own , and sat me down at table , a scorched and glutinous wreck , too overcome with lassitude to tackle the obnoxious meal of my own providing . And to the sofa , already made familiar of that dishonoured towel , I was fain presently to confide the empty problem of my own aching head . All this was but the forerunner and earnest of a month 's long martyrdom . That night the sea had me by the nerves again , and for many nights after ; and , although I grew in time to a certain tolerance of the booming monotony , it was the tolerance of a dully resigned , not an indifferent , brain .