* * * * *
_Punctuality_.--The late hospitable Colonel Bosville had his
dinner on the table exactly two minutes before five o'clock, and no
guest was admitted after that hour; for he was such a determined
observer of punctuality, that when the clock struck five, his
porter locked the street-door, and laid the key at the head of the
dinner-table. The time kept by the clock in the kitchen, the parlour,
and the drawing-room, and the watch of the master, were minutely the
same. That the dinner was ready, was not announced to the guests in
the usual way; but when the clock struck, this superlative time-keeper
himself declared to his guests, "Dinner waits." Boileau, the French
satirist, has a shrewd observation on this subject: "I have always been
_punctual at the hour of dinner_," says the bard, "for I knew that
all those whom I kept waiting at that provoking interval would employ
those unpleasant moments to sum up all my faults."