nine o'clock
It began to snow before we had left the city a mile behind us , but that made things all the merrier . How we chuckled with laughter as the fast flakes stuck upon Mr. Ireton 's hat and overcoat and leggings , until he looked like a polar bear but for his face that got redder as the rest of his body whitened , until , with his shining teeth and powdered hair , he made us think of Santa Claus . When we let down the carriage-window to tell him so , he drew a pipe from his pocket , got behind the carriage to screen it from the wind while he was lighting it , and rode up again alongside of us , puffing away at it to carry out the likeness . We set out at nine o'clock , and at one o'clock stopped at Flat Rock , a well-known house of entertainment , for an early dinner and a generous feed for the horses . The roads were heavy with winter mud , red and sticky . It looked like strawberry ice-cream as the wheels and hoofs churned it up with the snow . Mam ' Chloe laughed until her fat sides quaked when I said that .