five in the afternoon
He was a character of no little notoriety in those parts , enjoying the reputation of being able to consume more pineapple rum with less effect upon his balance than any other man in the community . He possessed the voice of a stentor , a short , thick-set , broad-shouldered person , a face congested to a violent carnation , and red hair of such a color as to add infinitely to the consuming fire of his countenance . The Custom Office was a little white frame building with green shutters , and overhanging the water as though to topple into the tide . Here at any time of the day betwixt the hours of ten in the morning and of five in the afternoon the Collector was to be found at his desk smoking his pipe of tobacco , the while a thin , phthisical clerk bent with unrelaxing assiduity over a multitude of account-books and papers accumulated before him . For his post of Collectorship of the Royal Customs , Lieutenant Goodhouse was especially indebted to the patronage of Colonel Belford . The worthy Collector had , some years before , come to that gentleman with a written recommendation from the Earl of Clandennie of a very unusual sort . It was the Lieutenant 's good-fortune to save the life of the Honorable Frederick Dunburne , second son of the Earl -- a wild , rakish , undisciplined youth , much given to such mischievous enterprises as the twisting off of door-knockers , the beating of the watch , and the carrying away of tavern signs .