twelve o'clock
And suppose there are times when a man feels as if hell could n't be much worse than what he 's feeling all the long day through -- and I tell you there are -- I , who have often stood it hour after hour -- wo n't he drink then ? And why should n't he ? We began to find that towards the end of the day we all of us found the way to father 's brandy keg -- that by nightfall the whole lot of us had quite as much as we could stagger under . I do n't say we regularly went in for drinking ; but we began to want it by twelve o'clock every day , and to keep things going after that till bedtime . In the morning we felt nervous and miserable ; on the whole we were n't very gay till the sun was over the foreyard . Anyhow , we made it up to clear out and have the first go-in for a touch on the southern line the next week as ever was . Father was as eager for it as anybody .