twelve o'clock
These may seem names , the like of which are not usually found in the Directory . In truth , they were nicknames , mutually conferred upon each other by my three clerks , and were deemed expressive of their respective persons or characters . Turkey was a short , pursy Englishman , of about my own age -- that is , somewhere not far from sixty . In the morning , one might say , his face was of a fine florid hue , but after twelve o'clock , meridian -- his dinner hour -- it blazed like a grate full of Christmas coals ; and continued blazing -- but , as it were , with a gradual wane -- till six o'clock , P.M. , or thereabouts ; after which , I saw no more of the proprietor of the face , which , gaining its meridian with the sun , seemed to set with it , to rise , culminate , and decline the following day , with the like regularity and undiminished glory . There are many singular coincidences I have known in the course of my life , not the least among which was the fact , that , exactly when Turkey displayed his fullest beams from his red and radiant countenance , just then , too , at that critical moment , began the daily period when I considered his business capacities as seriously disturbed for the remainder of the twenty-four hours . Not that he was absolutely idle , or averse to business , then ; far from it . The difficulty was , he was apt to be altogether too energetic .