seven o'clock
`` So she may be Mrs. Pendennis still , '' Bows said , with a sneer -- `` No thank you , Mr. F. -- I 've dined . '' `` Sure , that was at three o'clock , '' said Miss Costigan , who had an honest appetite , `` and I ca n't go without you . '' `` We 'll have lobster salad and Champagne , '' said the little monster , who could not construe a line of Latin , or do a sum beyond the Rule of Three . Now , for lobster-salad and Champagne in an honorable manner Miss Costigan would have gone any where -- and Major Pendennis actually found himself at seven o'clock , seated at a dinner-table in company with Mr. Bows , a professional fiddler , and Miss Costigan , whose father had wanted to blow his brains out a few hours before . To make the happy meeting complete , Mr. Foker , who knew Costigan 's haunts , dispatched Stoopid to the club at the Magpie , where the general was in the act of singing a pathetic song , and brought him off to supper . To find his daughter and Bows seated at the board was a surprise indeed -- Major Pendennis laughed , and cordially held out his hand , which the general officer grasped _ avec effusion _ , as the French say . In fact , he was considerably inebriated , and had already been crying over his own song before he joined the little party at the George .