As of old, he called ‘Jonathan!’ and was not to be disturbed till he did so.  Seeing that Jonathan smirked and twiddled his napkin, the old gentleman added, ‘Thursday!’

But Jonathan, a man, had not his mistress’s keen intuition of the deportment necessitated by the case, or was incapable of putting the screw upon weak excited nature, for he continued to smirk, and was remarking how glad he was, he was sure, and something he had dared to think and almost to fear, when the old gentleman called to him, as if he were at the other end of the room, ’Will you order Thursday, or not, sir?’ Whereat Jonathan flew, and two or three cosy diners glanced up from their plates, or the paper, smiled, and pursued their capital occupation.

‘Glad to see me!’ the old gentleman muttered, querulously.  ’Of course, glad to see a customer!  Why do you tell me that?  Talk! tattle! might as well have a woman to wait—­just!’

He wiped his forehead largely with his handkerchief; as one whom Calamity hunted a little too hard in summer weather.

‘No tumbling-room for the wine, too!’

That was his next grievance.  He changed the pint of Madeira from his left side to his right, and went under his handkerchief again, feverishly.  The world was severe with this old gentleman.

‘Ah! clock wrong now!’

He leaned back like a man who can no longer carry his burdens, informing Jonathan, on his coming up to place the roll of bread and firm butter, that he was forty seconds too fast, as if it were a capital offence, and he deserved to step into Eternity for outstripping Time.

‘But, I daresay, you don’t understand the importance of a minute,’ said the old gentleman, bitterly.  ’Not you, or any of you.  Better if we had run a little ahead of your minute, perhaps—­and the rest of you!  Do you think you can cancel the mischief that’s done in the world in that minute, sir, by hurrying ahead like that?  Tell me!’

Rather at a loss, Jonathan scanned the clock seriously, and observed that it was not quite a minute too fast.

The old gentleman pulled out his watch.  He grunted that a lying clock was hateful to him; subsequently sinking into contemplation of his thumbs,—­a sign known to Jonathan as indicative of the old gentleman’s system having resolved, in spite of external outrages, to be fortified with calm to meet the repast.

It is not fair to go behind an eccentric; but the fact was, this old gentleman was slightly ashamed of his month’s vagrancy and cruel conduct, and cloaked his behaviour toward the Aurora, in all the charges he could muster against it.  He was very human, albeit an odd form of the race.

Happily for his digestion of Thursday, the cook, warned by Jonathan, kept the old gentleman’s time, not the Aurora’s:  and the dinner was correct; the dinner was eaten in peace; he began to address his plate vigorously, poured out his Madeira, and chuckled, as the familiar ideas engendered by good wine were revived in him.  Jonathan reported at the bar that the old gentleman was all right again.