J.E.J.
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."