ten o’clock
You must know that , among many places I dislike , Paris carries the palm . I am bored to death there ; it 's the home of every humbug . The life is full of that false comfort which is worse than discomfort , and the small , fat , irritable people , give me the shivers . I had been making these reflections even more devoutly than usual one very tiresome evening toward the beginning of last summer , when , as I re-entered my hotel at ten o'clock , the little reptile of a portress handed me your gracious lines . I was in a villainous humour . I had been having an over-dressed dinner in a stuffy restaurant , and had gone from there to a suffocating theatre , where , by way of amusement , I saw a play in which blood and lies were the least of the horrors . The theatres over there are insupportable ; the atmosphere is pestilential .