twelve o'clock
Say that there was a fat Baron trotting to and fro like a dog hunting for rabbits ; put down two tired and hungry chauffeurs , famished for want of meat and cursing their fate ; do this , and add that they swore at both the sexes indifferently , and you 'll have the thing to a tick . But I assure you that it 's pleasanter to read about than to suffer ; and any driver would admit as much . Good Lord , what a day it was ! The fat Baron , I should tell you , did not give up the hunt until near twelve o'clock ; but when he had searched every thicket within a mile or more , he came back to us and deliberately made himself comfortable inside his car . As for me , I did not dare to move a step either way . If I had gone on , it would have been to have left Madame in the woods ; while if I stayed , he stayed -- and there you had it . And this game went on till dusk , mind you , and would have gone on longer but for the instinct which came to me quite suddenly like a thought dropped from the skies : that her ladyship had given us both the slip , after all , and would be already where the Baron Albert could not find her .