eight o'clock
Such , at least , was the opinion of the clubs themselves , when the news was posted up among the weather reports and the latest tapes from the House that same evening . While Lord Ferriby 's friends were comfortably endowing him with a few compensating virtues over their tea and hot buttered toast in Pall Mall and St. James 's Street , Mr. Wade , Tony , and White dined together at the Hotel of the Old Shooting Gallery at The Hague . The hour was an early one , and had never been countenanced by Lord Ferriby , but the three men in whose hands he had literally left his good name did not attach supreme importance to this matter . Indeed , the banker thought kindly of six-thirty as an hour at which in earlier days he had been endowed with a better appetite than he ever possessed now at eight o'clock or later . While they were at table a telegram was handed to Cornish . It was from Lord Ferriby 's solicitor in London , and contained the advice that Tony Cornish had been appointed sole executor of his lordship 's will . `` Thank God ! ''