Twelve o'clock
A man from South Bromfield started to cap the pose , as low persons always do in these boarding-houses , but Father changed the subject , in a slightly peppery manner . Father could be playful with Mother , but , like all men who are worth anything , he could be as Olympian as a king or a woman author or a box-office manager when he was afflicted by young men who chewed gum and were chatty . He put his gold-bowed eye-glasses on the end of his nose and looked over them so wealthily that the summerites were awed and shyly ate their apple-sauce to the last dreg . Twelve o'clock dinner at the Tubbses ' was a very respectable meal , with roasts and vegetables to which you could devote some skill and energy . But supper was more like an after-thought , a sort of afternoon tea without the wrist-watch conversation . It was soon over , the dishes soon washed , and by seven o'clock the Applebys and Tubbses gathered in the sacred parlor , where ordinary summerites were not welcome , where the family crayon-enlargements hung above the green plush settee from Boston , which was flanked by the teak table which Uncle Joe 's Uncle Ira had brought from China , and the whale 's vertebræ without which no high-caste Cape Cod household is virtuous . With joy and verbal fireworks , with highly insulting comments on one another 's play , began the annual series of cribbage games -- a world 's series , a Davis cup tournament .