two o’clock
Do what they might , there was no keeping down the butcher . His sturdy nature would break through all their glozings . He had a hearty vulgar good-humor that was irrepressible . His very jokes made his sensitive daughters shudder , and he persisted in wearing his blue cotton coat of a morning , dining at two o'clock , and having a `` bit of sausage with his tea . '' He was doomed , however , to share the unpopularity of his family . He found his old comrades gradually growing cold and civil to him , no longer laughing at his jokes , and now and then throwing out a fling at `` some people '' and a hint about `` quality binding . '' This both nettled and perplexed the honest butcher ; and his wife and daughters , with the consummate policy of the shrewder sex , taking advantage of the circumstance , at length prevailed upon him to give up his afternoon 's pipe and tankard at Wagstaff 's , to sit after dinner by himself and take his pint of port -- a liquor he detested -- and to nod in his chair in solitary and dismal gentility .