eight o'clock
`` Well , Driscoll , '' said Flurry , `` since it was n't the teeth of the rake he left on the mare , you need n't be talking ! '' Leigh Kelway looked from one to the other with a wilder expression in his eye than I had thought it capable of . I read in it a resolve to abandon Ireland to her fate . At eight o'clock we were still waiting for the car that we had been assured should be ours directly it returned from the races . At half-past eight we had adopted the only possible course that remained , and had accepted the offers of lifts on the laden cars that were returning to Skebawn , and I presently was gratified by the spectacle of my friend Leigh Kelway wedged between a roulette table and its proprietor on one side of a car , with Driscoll and Slipper , mysteriously reconciled and excessively drunk , seated , locked in each other 's arms , on the other . Flurry and I , somewhat similarly placed , followed on two other cars . I was scarcely surprised when I was informed that the melancholy white animal in the shafts of the leading car was Owld Bocock 's much-enduring steeplechaser .