two o'clock in
the morning
`` You 'll have to hurry . '' `` I 'll hurry ! '' said Jill . Doctors , laying down the law in their usual confident way , tell us that the vitality of the human body is at its lowest at two o'clock in the morning : and that it is then , as a consequence , that the mind is least able to contemplate the present with equanimity , the future with fortitude , and the past without regret . Every thinking man , however , knows that this is not so . The true zero hour , desolate , gloom-ridden , and spectre-haunted , occurs immediately before dinner while we are waiting for that cocktail . It is then that , stripped for a brief moment of our armour of complacency and self-esteem , we see ourselves as we are -- frightful chumps in a world where nothing goes right ; a grey world in which , hoping to click , we merely get the raspberry ; where , animated by the best intentions , we nevertheless succeed in perpetrating the scaliest bloomers and landing our loved ones neck-deep in the gumbo .