twenty-five
minutes past five
After a good many questions I elicited from the waiters that the dinner had been ordered not for five , but for six o'clock . This was confirmed at the buffet too . I felt really ashamed to go on questioning them . It was only twenty-five minutes past five . If they changed the dinner hour they ought at least to have let me know -- that is what the post is for , and not to have put me in an absurd position in my own eyes and ... and even before the waiters . I sat down ; the servant began laying the table ; I felt even more humiliated when he was present . Towards six o'clock they brought in candles , though there were lamps burning in the room .