half past seven
Still it was amusing , and they were patient of Burnamy 's delay till he could get a morning off from Stoller and go with them to the Posthof . He met Mrs. March in the reading-room , where March was to join them on his way from the springs with his bag of bread . The earlier usage of buying the delicate pink slices of Westphalia ham , which form the chief motive of a Carlsbad breakfast , at a certain shop in the town , and carrying them to the cafe with you , is no longer of such binding force as the custom of getting your bread at the Swiss bakery . You choose it yourself at the counter , which begins to be crowded by half past seven , and when you have collected the prescribed loaves into the basket of metallic filigree given you by one of the baker 's maids , she puts it into a tissue-paper bag of a gay red color , and you join the other invalids streaming away from the bakery , their paper bags making a festive rustling as they go . Two roads lead out of the town into the lovely meadow-lands , a good mile up the brawling Tepl , before they join on the right side of the torrent , where the Posthof lurks nestled under trees whose boughs let the sun and rain impartially through upon its army of little tables . By this time the slow omnibus plying between Carlsbad and some villages in the valley beyond has crossed from the left bank to the right , and keeps on past half a dozen other cafes , where patients whose prescriptions marshal them beyond the Posthof drop off by the dozens and scores . The road on the left bank of the Tepl is wild and overhung at points with wooded steeps , when it leaves the town ; but on the right it is bordered with shops and restaurants a great part of its length .