four to five in the afternoon
With this very queer fish Paul had established a certain intimacy . The man , as a matter of course , was periodically hard up , and he had come to the stage when it was here five shillings and there half a crown as a charge for the charm of his society with the most casual of acquaintances . He made his breakfast on a salt-spoonful of cayenne and a glass of brandy , and he passed from intellectual godhood to a hiccuping imbecility in a breath . At from four to five in the afternoon he carried his lofty head and a prematurely pimpled countenance into some unwatched obscurity . He habitually emerged from this hiding-place within an hour of midnight , and thence his flight was an owl 's . The social chill which surrounded Paul 's household had grown arctic , and Madge , Mrs. Hampton , and Phyllis had all been bundled away to Ostend , in a sunken identity . The house in which the cause of disturbance had so long been unreasonably happy was closed .