one o’clock
How exceedingly impossible it is , in governing men , to lay down positive rules , even where we know the temper of the individual to be gained . `` You must be very stiff and formal with the St. Quintins , '' said my mother . She was right in the general admonition , and had I found them all seated in the best drawing-room , Mrs. St. Quintin in her best attire , and the children on their best behaviour , I should have been as stately as Don Quixote in a brocade dressing-gown ; but finding them in such dishabille , I could not affect too great a plainness and almost coarseness of bearing , as if I had never been accustomed to any thing more refined than I found there ; nor might I , by any appearance of pride in myself , put them in mind of the wound their own pride had received . The difficulty was to blend with this familiarity a certain respect , just the same as a French ambassador might have testified towards the august person of George the Third , had he found his Majesty at dinner at one o'clock , over mutton and turnips . In overcoming this difficulty , I congratulated myself with as much zeal and fervour as if I had performed the most important victory ; for , whether it be innocent or sanguinary , in war or at an election , there is no triumph so gratifying to the viciousness of human nature , as the conquest of our fellow beings . But I must return to my wine-merchant , Mr. Briggs . His house was at the entrance of the town of Buyemall ; it stood inclosed in a small garden , flaming with crocuses and sunflowers , and exhibiting an arbour to the right , where , in the summer evenings , the respectable owner might be seen , with his waistcoat unbuttoned , in order to give that just and rational liberty to the subordinate parts of the human commonwealth which the increase of their consequence after the hour of dinner , naturally demands .