eight
o'clock
His valet , on being appealed to , corroborated Mr. Gammon 's representations ; adding , that the late hour in the evening at which that respectable vehicle arrived in town would effectually shroud him from public observation . Giving strict and repeated orders to his valet to deposit him at once `` in a first-rate West-End hotel , '' the haughty lord of Yatton , plentifully provided with cigars , stepped into the mail , his valet perching himself upon the box-seat . That gifted functionary was well acquainted with town , and resolved on his master 's taking up his quarters at the Harcourt Hotel , in the immediate vicinity of Bond Street . The mail passed the Peacock , at Islington , about half-past eight o'clock ; and long before they had reached even that point , the eager and anxious eye of Titmouse had been on the look-out for indications of his celebrity . He was , however , compelled to own that both people and places seemed much as usual -- wearing no particular air of excitement . At this he was a little chagrined , till he reflected on the vulgar ignorance of the movements of the great , for which the eastern regions of the metropolis were proverbial , and also on the increasing duskiness of the evening , the rapid pace at which the mail rattled along , and the circumstance of his being concealed inside . When his humble hackney-coach -LRB- its driver a feeble old man , with a wisp of straw for a hat-band , and sitting on the rickety box like a heap of dirty old clothes , and the flagging and limping horses looking truly miserable objects -RRB- had rumbled slowly up to the lofty and gloomy door of the Harcourt Hotel , it seemed to excite no notice whatever .