ten o’clock
The idea of the breech-loading cannon had occurred to him suddenly one day , in one of his New-World-ward reveries , and he had made haste to realize it , carefully studying the form and general effect of the Austrian cannon under the gallery of the Ducal Palace , to the high embarrassment of the Croat sentry who paced up and down there , and who did not feel free to order off a priest as he would a civilian . Don Ippolito 's model was of admirable finish ; he even painted the carriage yellow and black , because that of the original was so , and colored the piece to look like brass ; and he lost a day while the paint was drying , after he was otherwise ready to show it to the consul . He had parted from Ferris with some gleams of comfort , caught chiefly from his kindly manner , but they had died away before nightfall , and this morning he could not rekindle them . He had had his coffee served to him on the bench , as his frequent custom was , but it stood untasted in the little copper pot beside the dismounted cannon , though it was now ten o'clock , and it was full time he had breakfasted , for he had risen early to perform the matin service for three peasant women , two beggars , a cat , and a paralytic nobleman , in the ancient and beautiful church to which he was attached . He had tried to go about his wonted occupations , but he was still sitting idle before his bench , while his servant gossiped from her balcony to the mistress of the next house , across a calle so deep and narrow that it opened like a mountain chasm beneath them . `` It were well if the master read his breviary a little more , instead of always maddening himself with those blessed inventions , that eat more soldi than a Christian , and never come to anything . There he sits before his table , as if he were nailed to his chair , and lets his coffee cool -- and God knows I was ready to drink it warm two hours ago -- and never looks at me if I open the door twenty times to see whether he has finished .