eight o’clock
Having , at length , obtained a very formidable statement of my ` case ' from the Doctor , and a strong letter from the Colonel , deploring the temporary loss of so promising a young officer , I committed myself and my portmanteau to the inside of his Majesty 's mail , and started for Dublin with as light a heart and high spirits , as were consistent with so much delicacy of health , and the directions of my Doctor . I shall not stop now to narrate the particulars of my visit to the worthies of the medical board ; the rather , as some of my `` confessions to come '' have reference to Dublin , and many of those that dwell therein . I shall therefore content myself here with stating , that without any difficulty I obtained a six months ' leave , and having received much advice and more sympathy from many members of that body , took a respectful leave of them , and adjourned to Bilton 's where I had ordered dinner , and -LRB- as I was advised to live low -RRB- a bottle of Sneyd 's claret . My hours in Dublin were numbered ; at eight o'clock on the evening of my arrival I hastened to the Pidgeon House pier , to take my berth in the packet for Liverpool ; and here , gentle reader , let me implore you if you have bowels of compassion , to commiserate the condition of a sorry mortal like myself . In the days of which I now speak , steam packets were not -- men knew not then , of the pleasure of going to a comfortable bed in Kingstown harbour , and waking on the morning after in the Clarence dock at Liverpool , with only the addition of a little sharper appetite for breakfast , before they set out on an excursion of forty miles per hour through the air . In the time I have now to commemorate , the intercourse between the two countries was maintained by two sailing vessels of small tonnage , and still scantier accommodation . Of the one now in question I well recollect the name -- she was called the `` Alert , '' and certainly a more unfortunate misnomer could scarcely be conceived .