six
in the morning
Hycy nodded and laughed , and Ted , cracking his whip , proceeded up the town to sell his turf . Hycy now sauntered about through the market , chatting here and there among acquaintances , with the air of a man to whom neither life nor anything connected with it could occasion any earthly trouble . Indeed , it mattered little what he felt , his easiness of manner was such that not one of his acquaintances could for a moment impute to him the possibility of ever being weighed down by trouble or care of any kind ; and lest his natural elasticity of spirits might fail to sustain this perpetual buoyancy , he by no means neglected to fortify himself with artificial support . Meet him when or where you might , be it at six in the morning or twelve at night , you were certain to catch from his breath the smell of liquor , either in its naked simplicity or disguised and modified in some shape . His ride home , though a rapid , was by no means a pleasing one . M'Mahon had not only refused to lend him the money he stood in need of , but actually quarrelled with him , as far as he could judge , for no other purpose but that he might make the quarrel a plea for refusing him . This disappointment , to a person of Hycy 's disposition , was , we have seen , bitterly vexatious , and it may be presumed that he reached home in anything but an agreeable humor .