midnight
You would not get amused , '' suggested his interrogator , a brilliant Parisienne . `` Well -- everybody is , pretty nearly , '' said Bertie ; `` but there are always a lot of fellows who give their wits to get their dinners -- social rockets , you know -- who will always fire themselves off to sparkle instead of you , if you give them a white ball at the clubs , or get them a card for good houses . It saves you so much trouble ; it is such a bore to have to talk . '' He went that night , as he had said , to half a dozen good houses , midnight receptions , and after-midnight waltzes ; making his bow in a Cabinet Minister 's vestibule , and taking up the thread of the same flirtation at three different balls ; showing himself for a moment at a Premier 's At-home , and looking eminently graceful and pre-eminently weary in an ambassadress ' drawing room , and winding up the series by a dainty little supper in the gray of the morning , with a sparkling party of French actresses , as bright as the bubbles of their own Clicquot . When he went upstairs to his own bedroom , in Piccadilly , about five o'clock , therefore , he was both sleepy and tired , and lamented to that cherished and ever-discreet confidant , a cheroot , the brutal demands of the Service ; which would drag him off , in five hours ' time , without the slightest regard to his feelings , to take share in the hot , heavy , dusty , searching work of a field-day up at the Scrubs . `` Here -- get me to perch as quick as you can , Rake , '' he murmured , dropping into an armchair ; astonished that Rake did not answer , he saw standing by him instead the boy Berkeley . Surprise was a weakness of raw inexperience that Cecil never felt ; his gazette as Commander-in-Chief , or the presence of the Wandering Jew in his lodgings would never have excited it in him .