hour from
seven o'clock in the morning
The time went on to the evening previous to the departure . Lionel and John Massingbird had dined alone , and now sat together at the open window , in the soft May twilight . A small table was at John 's elbow ; a bottle of rum , and a jar of tobacco , water and a glass being on it , ready to his hand . He had done his best to infect Lionel with a taste for rum-and-water -- as a convenient beverage to be taken at any hour from seven o'clock in the morning onwards -- but Lionel had been proof against it . John had the rum-drinking to himself , as he had the smoking . Lionel had behaved to him liberally . It was not in Lionel Verner 's nature to behave otherwise , no matter to whom .