ten o'clock
`` Mon Dieu ! these English allies of ours ! '' `` Well ! '' he said , after a pause , `` if Monsieur honours me with such a request , I shall be in and at your service from ten o'clock to-morrow morning . '' He felt in his pocket and handed me a card with courtesy . It was quite refreshing to meet such a man in Paris in 1869 -- so naïve , so unassuming , so free from that aggressive self-esteem which characterized Frenchmen before the war . Since I had arrived in the capital under the circumstances that amused John Turner so consumedly , I had been tempted to raise my fist in the face of every second flaneur I met on the boulevard .