noon
By that time we had grown to be extremely familiar ; and I would very willingly have kept him by me , and even carried him to Amersham Place . But it appeared he was due at the public-house where we had met , on some affairs of my great-uncle the Count , who had an outlying estate in that part of the shire . If Dudgeon had had his way the night before , I should have been arrested on my uncle 's land and by my uncle 's agent , a culmination of ill-luck . A little after noon I started , in a hired chaise , by way of Dunstable . The mere mention of the name Amersham Place made every one supple and smiling . It was plainly a great house , and my uncle lived there in style . The fame of it rose as we approached , like a chain of mountains ; at Bedford they touched their caps , but in Dunstable they crawled upon their bellies .