four o'clock
The upper floors of the huge Genoese house are let out in large or small apartments to mysterious families , of which the younger members are always to be met carrying jugs carefully up and down the greasy , common staircase . The first floor is the Hotel Clément , or , to be more correct , one is `` chez Clément '' on the first floor . `` You stay with Clément , '' will be the natural remark of any on board the Marseilles or Leghorn steamer , on being told that the traveller disembarks at Bastia . `` We shall meet to-night chez Clément , '' the officers say to each other on leaving the parade ground at four o'clock . `` Déjeuner chez Clément , '' is the usual ending to a notice of a marriage , or a first communion , in the _ Petit Bastiais _ , that greatest of all foolscap-size journals . It is comforting to reflect , in these times of hurried changes , that the traveller to Bastia may still find himself chez Clément -- may still have to kick at the closed door of the first-floor flat , and find that door opened by Clément himself , always affable , always gentlemanly , with the same crumbs strewed carelessly down the same waistcoat , or , if it is evening time , in his spotless cook 's dress . One may be sure of the same grave welcome , and the easy transition from grave to gay , the smiling , grand manner of conducting the guest to one of those vague and darksome bedrooms , where the jug and the basin never match , where the floor is of red tiles , with a piece of uncertain carpet sliding hither and thither , with the shutters always shut , and the mustiness of the middle ages hanging heavy in the air .