about ten o'clock in the morning
Titmouse was thinking all the while of two very different matters ; viz. whether he could possibly sit it out without a bottle of soda-water , laboring as he was , under the sickening effects of excessive potations over-night ; and also whether his favorite little terrier , Titty , would win or lose in her encounter on the morrow with fifty rats -- that being the number which Mr. Titmouse had betted three to one she would kill in three minutes ' time . The decision to which that committee might come , would affect interests to the amount of nearly a million sterling , and might or might not occasion a monstrous invasion of vested rights ! He still continued to occupy his very handsome apartments at the Albany . You might generally have seen him , about ten o'clock in the morning , -LRB- or say _ twelve _ , when his attendance was not required upon committees , -RRB- reclining on his sofa , enveloped in a yellow figured satin dressing-gown , smoking an enormous hookah ; with a little table before him , with a decanter of gin , cold water , and a tumbler or two upon it . On a large round table near him lay a great number of dinner and evening cards , notes , letters , public and private , vote-papers , and Parliamentary reports . Beside him , on the sofa , lay the last number of the _ Sunday Flash _ -- to which , and to the _ Newgate Calendar _ , his reading was , in fact , almost entirely confined . Over his mantelpiece was a large hideous oil-painting of two brawny and half-naked ruffians , in boxing attitude ; opposite was a very large picture -LRB- for which he had given seventy guineas -RRB- of Lord Scaramouch 's dog Nestor , in his famous encounter with two hundred rats , which he killed in the astonishingly short space of seven minutes and fifteen seconds .