three o'clock
If men wo n't be original , or ca n't be , why do n't they hold their tongues ? '' `` What fools we are to sit shut up with gas-lights and tobacco on such a night as this ! -- a night for Lorenzo and Jessica , for Romeo and Juliet , '' he thinks , as he stands awhile at the open window of his own bedroom . It is three o'clock : there is a faint suggestive light which means the dawn , young birds are twittering , there is a delicious scent of green leaves , of full-blown roses , of dewy mosses ; the air is damp and warm , he can hear the feet of blackbirds scraping and turning over the mould and the grass ; it is dark , yet he can distinguish the masses of the great woods beyond the gardens , the outlines of the trees near his casement , the shape of the clouds as they move slowly southward . He wonders in what part of the old house , whose fantastic roofs and turrets and gargoyles and ivy-colored buttresses are hidden in the dusk of the summer night , they have given the Princess Sabaroff her chamber . He remains some time at the open window , and goes to his bed as the dawn grows rosy . `` Lord Brandolin is in a very bad temper , '' says Mr. Wootton , when the smoking-room door has closed on the object of his detestation ; then he pauses , and adds , significantly , `` The Brandolins , you know , were always a little -- just a little -- clever family , very clever , but we all know to what great wits are sadly often allied .