ten
o'clock
You know , _ ma petite _ , what the Count Pistachio said to you at Avignon about giving encouragement to anything less than four figures . '' I could not avoid overhearing this conversation , my boy , for it was not held in whispers , and I thought to myself , as I eyed the fashionable pair , `` The Republic still lives . '' It is , however , with the foreign embassies at Washington , that the genuine aristocratic spirit still holds its normal own ; and when I lately received an invitation from a certain convivial diplomatist of the Set to be one of a select party of distinguished gentlemen at his residence on a certain evening , I felt that there was still an available balm in Gilead . Arriving in the rooms shortly before ten o'clock , I found seven middle-aged gentlemen in cambric ruffles and scratch-wigs assembled around the wine-table , all pledging the health of the Venerable Gammon , who had come up from Mugville expressly to be present . There was the French Marquis Non Puebla , on a visit to this country to search for traces of one of the lost gravies of Apicius ; Milord Gurgle , who had been deputed to convey to New York a pair of Southdown sheep , presented by the Zoölogical Gardens to Central Park ; the Honorable Peter Pidger , who had once been to Europe to negotiate the sale of some railroad stock ; the Ambassador in person ; and three other respectable persons with no names , whose sole duty it was to indorse the Ambassador whenever he said anything about `` dat signeeficant commencement of dees war at Bool Run . '' But the greatest of them all , my boy , was the Venerable Gammon , who smiled fatly as they drank his health , and emptied his own crystal with a soft benignity which seemed to consecrate that brand of liquor forever . `` My friends , '' says the Venerable Gammon , waving an unctuous hand around the board in a manner to confer blessings on the very nutcrackers , -- `` my friends , I accept the honor for my country , and not for myself .