Seven o’clock
So he laid down his brush , just as he was about to begin varnishing the `` Golden Age ; '' and set himself to console Zack , by reminding him of all the credit and honor he might yet win , if he was regular in attending to his new studies -- if he never flinched from work at the British Museum , and the private Drawing School to which he was immediately to be introduced -- and if he ended as he well might end , in excusing to his father his determination to be an artist , by showing Mr. Thorpe a prize medal , won by the industry of his son 's hand in the Schools of the Royal Academy . A necessary characteristic of people whose spirits are always running into extremes , is that they are generally able to pass from one change of mood to another with unusual facility . By the time Zack had exhausted Mr. Blyth 's copious stores of consolation , had partaken of an excellent and plentiful hot lunch , and had passed an hour up stairs with the ladies , he predicted his own reformation just as confidently as he had predicted his own ruin about two hours before ; and went away to Kirk Street , to see that his friend Mat was at home to receive Valentine that evening , stepping along as nimbly and swinging his stick as cheerfully , as if he had already vindicated himself to his father by winning every prize medal that the Royal Academy could bestow . Seven o'clock had been fixed as the hour at which Mr. Blyth was to present himself at the lodgings in Kirk Street . He arrived punctual to the appointed time , dressed jauntily for the occasion in a short blue frock coat , famous among all his acquaintances for its smartness of cut and its fabulous old age . From what Zack had told him of Mat 's lighter peculiarities of character , he anticipated a somewhat uncivilized reception from the elder of his two hosts ; and when he got to Kirk Street , he certainly found that his expectations were , upon the whole , handsomely realized . On mounting the dark and narrow wooden staircase of the tobacconist 's shop , his nose was greeted by a composite smell of fried liver and bacon , brandy and water , and cigar smoke , pouring hospitably down to meet him through the crevices of the drawing-room door .