six o'clock
There can be no doubt but that I was somewhat vulgar in my manners , and my carriage was certainly quite unlike that of my companions . Some of them even jeered me , but I regarded them not . A real grief is armour-proof against ridicule . In a short time , it being six o'clock , the supper was served out , consisting of a round of bread , all the moisture of which had been allowed to evaporate , and an oblong , diaphanous , yellow substance , one inch and a half by three , that I afterwards learned might be known among the initiated as single Gloucester . There was also a pewter mug for each , three-parts filled with small beer . It certainly gave me , it was so small , a very desponding idea of the extent to which littleness might be carried ; and it would have been too vapid for the toleration of any palate , had it not been so sour . As I sat regardless before this repast , in abstracted grief , I underwent the first of the thousand practical jokes that were hereafter to familiarise me with manual jocularity .