one o'clock
said the consul again , very contritely . `` I 'm very sorry I laughed ; but '' -- here he looked into the colonel 's gloomy face with a countenance contorted with agony -- `` this only makes it the more ridiculous , you know ; '' and he reeled away , drunk with the mirth which filled him from head to foot . But he repented again , and with a superhuman effort so far subdued his transports as merely to quake internally , and tremble all over , as he led the way to the next hotel , arm in arm with the bewildered and embittered colonel . He encouraged the latter with much genuine sympathy , and observed a proper decorum in his interviews with one portier after another , formulating the colonel 's story very neatly , and explaining at the close that this American Herr , who had arrived at Vienna before daylight and directed his driver to take him to the Kaiserin Elisabeth , and had left his hotel at one o'clock in the belief that it was the Kaiserin Elisabeth , felt now an added eagerness to know what his hotel really was from the circumstance that his wife was there quite alone and in probable distress at his long absence . At first Colonel Kenton took a lively interest in this statement of his case , and prompted the consul with various remarks and sub-statements ; he was grateful for the compassion generally shown him by the portiers , and he strove with himself to give some account of the exterior and locality of his mysterious hotel . But the fact was that he had not so much as looked behind him when he quitted it , and knew nothing about its appearance ; and gradually the reiteration of the points of his misadventure to one portier after another began to be as `` a tale of little meaning , though the words are strong . '' His personation of an American Herr in great trouble of mind was an entire failure , except as illustrating the national apathy of countenance when under the influence of strong emotion .