six
o'clock in the evening
It was on a disagreeable , cold , sloppy , raw , winter evening -- an evening drizzling sometimes with rain , and sometimes with sleet -- that an elderly man was driven up to the door of the hotel on a one-horse car -- or jingle , as such conveniences were then called in the south of Ireland . He seemed to know the house , for with his outside coat all dripping as it was he went direct to the bar-window , and as Fanny O'Dwyer opened the door he walked into that warm precinct . There he encountered a gentleman , dressed one would say rather beyond the merits of the establishment , who was taking his ease at full length on Fanny 's sofa , and drinking some hot compound which was to be seen in a tumbler on the chimney-shelf just above his head . It was now six o'clock in the evening , and the gentleman no doubt had dined . `` Well , Aby ; here I am , as large as life , but as cold as death . Ugh ; what an affair that coach is ! Fanny , my best of darlings , give me a drop of something that 's best for warming the cockles of an old man 's heart . ''