four o’clock
`` Early to bed , and early to rise , Is the way to be healthy , and wealthy , and wise . '' We all know that lesson , and many of us believe in it ; but if the lesson be true , the Italians ought to be the healthiest and wealthiest and wisest of all men and women . Three or four o'clock seems to them quite a natural hour for commencing the day 's work . Why we should have started from Chiavenna at four o'clock in order that we might be kept waiting for the boat an hour and a half on the little quay at Colico , I do n't know ; but such was our destiny . There we remained an hour and a half ; Mrs. Greene sitting pertinaciously on the one important box . She had designated it as being smaller than the others , and , as all the seven were now ranged in a row , I had an opportunity of comparing them . It was something smaller , -- perhaps an inch less high , and an inch and a half shorter .