eight o'clock, Thursday night
`` Do so , '' -- taking up my egg-spoon . Max slipped the purse into his breast-pocket and sat down . `` The one fault I have to find with European life is the poor quality of tobacco used . '' It was eight o'clock , Thursday night , the night of the dinner at Müller 's . I was dressing when Max entered , with a miserable cheroot between his teeth . `` They say , '' he went on , `` that in Russia they drink the finest tea in the world , simply because it is brought overland and not by sea . Unfortunately , tobacco -- we Americans recognize no leaf as tobacco unless it comes from Cuba -- has to cross the sea , and is , in some unaccountable manner , weakened in the transit .