seven o'clock
And why could he not be as happy at the one as at the other ? Would not Mr. Die be as amusing as Mr. Townsend ; and the arguments of Vice-Chancellor Stuart 's court quite as instructive as those heard in the committee room at Gortnaclough ? On the morning of his arrival in London he drove to his lodgings , and found a note there from Mr. Prendergast asking him to dinner on that day , and promising to take him to Mr. Die on the following morning . Mr. Prendergast kept a bachelor 's house in Bloomsbury Square , not very far from Lincoln 's Inn -- just across Holborn , as all Londoners know ; and there he would expect Herbert at seven o'clock . `` I will not ask any one to meet you , '' he said , `` because you will be tired after your journey , and perhaps more inclined to talk to me than to strangers . '' Mr. Prendergast was one of those old-fashioned people who think that a spacious substantial house in Bloomsbury Square , at a rent of a hundred and twenty pounds a year , is better worth having than a narrow , lath and plaster , ill-built tenement at nearly double the price out westward of the Parks . A quite new man is necessarily afraid of such a locality as Bloomsbury Square , for he has no chance of getting any one into his house if he do not live westward .