About three
o'clock in the afternoon
She found Mr. Porter -LRB- the clergyman -RRB- , Mr. Fuller , and his wife , with a lighted candle , and part of a bottle of port wine and a glass . The next thing was to have me down stairs , which being apprised of , I fastened my door . Up stairs they came , and threatened to break it open ; so I ordered the boys to open it , when they poured into my room ; and as modesty forbid me to get out of bed , so I refrained ; but their immodesty permitted them to draw me out of bed , as the phrase is , topsy-turvey ; but , however , at the intercession of Mr. Porter , they permitted me to put on * * * my wife 's petticoats ; and in this manner they made me dance , without shoes and stockings , until they had emptied a bottle of wine , and also a bottle of my beer . * * * About three o'clock in the afternoon , they found their way to their respective homes , beginning to be a little serious , and , in my opinion , ashamed of their stupid enterprise and drunken perambulation . Now let any one call in reason to his assistance , and reflect seriously on what I have before recited , and they will join me in thinking that the precepts delivered from the pulpit on Sunday , though delivered with the greatest ardour , must lose a great deal of there efficacy by such examples . '' Such were the amusements and such the moral reflections of a country tradesman in the middle of the last century , Fielding , Smollett , and the other novelists described the same kind of life : the same succession of brawls , drunken sprees , cock-fights , boxing matches , and bull-baitings . It would be difficult to imagine a state of society more ripe for a revival .