half past
eleven in the morning
It was by no means the comfortable home from Harrod 's Stores that Barbara had prescribed ; and he had not attempted to furnish it in slap-up style with the heads of game and skins and modern weapons which lay in the London Repository . It was the impersonal abode of the male bird of passage . `` Sit down , '' said he , `` and have a drink . '' I declined , alleging the fact that a philosophically minded country gentleman of domestic habits does not require alcohol at half past eleven in the morning , except under the stress of peculiar circumstances . `` I 'm going to have one anyway ! '' He disappeared and presently reëntered with a battered two-handled silver quart pot bearing defaced arms and inscription , a rowing trophy of Cambridge days , which he always carried about with him on no matter what lightly equipped expedition -- it is always a matter of regret to me that Jaffery , as I have mentioned before , missed his seat in the Cambridge boat ; but when one despoils a Proctor of his square cap and it is found the central feature of one 's rooms beneath a glass shade such as used to protect wax flowers from the dust , what can one expect from the priggish judgment of university authority ? -- he reëntered , with this vessel full of beer .