Which of the following phrases would best replace ‘former times’ as used in the passage?

Directions: Read the following passage carefully and answer the related question.

I was sitting on the other side and as the train was standing still, I still could hear snatches (1) of their conversation when nobody was passing between us. The tradesman began by saying he was going to his estate (2) which was only one station farther on; then, as usual, the conversation turned to price and trade, and they spoke of the state of business in Moscow and then of the Nizhny Novgorod fair. The clerk began to relate how a wealthy merchant, known to both of them, had gone on a spree (3) at the fair. But the old man interrupted (4) him by telling him of the origins he had been at in former times (5) in Kunavin fair. He evidently prided himself on the part he had played in them and recounted (6) with pleasure how he and some aquintainces (7) together  with the merchant they had been speaking of, had once got drunk in Kunavinand and played such a trick that he had to tell of it in a whisper. The clerk’s roar of laughter filled the whole carriage, the old man laughed also, berring (8) two yellow teeth.