1 P.M.
`` If they didn ' have families , what 'd become o ' English history ? '' If any tongues wagged against Mrs Bosenna for wearing the patriotic colours that day , they were not heard in the holiday crowd at the Passage Slip when , with nicely calculated unpunctuality , she arrived , at 11.32 -LRB- the time appointed having been 11.15 -RRB- , to be conveyed on board the Committee vessel . -LRB- It should be explained here that the aquatic half of Troy 's Passage Regatta is compressed within the forenoon : at midday Troy dines , and even on holidays observes Greenwich time for that event . Moreover , the afternoon sports of bicycle racing , steeplechasing , polo-bending , & c. , were preluded in those days -- before an electric-power station worked the haulage on the jetties -- by a procession of huge horses , highly groomed and bedecked with ribbons : and this procession , starting at 1 P.M. , allowed the avid holiday-keeper small margin for dallying over his meal . -RRB- Mrs Bosenna reached the slip to find Cai waiting below in a four-oared boat which he had borrowed from the Clerk of the Course . A large red ensign drooped from a staff and trailed in the water astern : the crew wore scarlet stocking-caps : bright cushion disposed in the stern-sheet added a touch of luxury to this pomp and circumstance . It might not rival the barge of Cleopatra upon Cydnus ; but the shore-crowd , under whose eyes it had been waiting for close upon twenty minutes , voted it to be a very creditable turn out ; and Cai , watch in hand , was at least as impatient as Mark Antony .