nine o'clock
_ Cassio _ . That thrust had been my enemy indeed , But that my coat is better than thou know ` st. OTHELLO . On the dark October night succeeding the evening on which Tomkins was slain , Colonel Everard , besides his constant attendant Roger Wildrake , had Master Nehemiah Holdenough with him as a guest at supper . The devotions of the evening having been performed according to the Presbyterian fashion , a light entertainment , and a double quart of burnt claret , were placed before his friends at nine o'clock , an hour unusually late . Master Holdenough soon engaged himself in a polemical discourse against Sectaries and Independents , without being aware that his eloquence was not very interesting to his principal hearer , whose ideas in the meanwhile wandered to Woodstock and all which it contained -- the Prince , who lay concealed there -- his uncle -- above all , Alice Lee . As for Wildrake , after bestowing a mental curse both on Sectaries and Presbyterians , as being , in his opinion , never a barrel the better herring , he stretched out his limbs , and would probably have composed himself to rest , but that he as well as his patron had thoughts which murdered sleep . The party were waited upon by a little gipsy-looking boy , in an orange-tawny doublet , much decayed , and garnished with blue worsted lace .