midnight
I suppose he was too much taken up with the study of his own perfections to see the perfections or imperfections of any body else : otherwise had he scarce been so stone-blind to all that went on but just afore his nose . There be folks that can see a mouse a mile off , and there be others that can not see an elephant a yard in front of them . But there be a third sort , and to my honest belief King Charles was of them , that can see the mouse as clear as sunlight when it is their own interest to detect him , but have not a notion of the elephant being there when they do not choose to look at him . When he wanted to be rid of his first wife Queen Blanche , he could see her well enough , and all her failings too , as black as midnight ; but when his sister behaved herself as ill as ever his wife did or could have done , he only shut his eyes and took a comfortable nap . Now King Charles had himself expelled my father from his dominions , for some old grudge that I never rightly understood ; yet never a word said he when he came back without licence . Marry , but our old King Edward should not have treated thus the unlicenced return of a banished man ! He would have been hung within the week , with him on the throne .