About three o'clock
After this , perhaps because of sated curiosity , perhaps on account of a pin famine , the attendance began to languish . Only four responded to the next call of the band ; the four dwindled to three ; finally the entertainment was given for one blase auditor , and Schofield and Williams looked depressed . Then followed an interval when the band played in vain . About three o'clock Schofield and Williams were gloomily discussing various unpromising devices for startling the public into a renewal of interest , when another patron unexpectedly appeared and paid a cent for his admission . News of the Big Show and Museum of Curiosities had at last penetrated the far , cold spaces of interstellar niceness , for this new patron consisted of no less than Roderick Magsworth Bitts , Junior , escaped in a white `` sailor suit '' from the Manor during a period of severe maternal and tutorial preoccupation . He seated himself without parley , and the pufformance was offered for his entertainment with admirable conscientiousness . True to the Lady Clara caste and training , Roderick 's pale , fat face expressed nothing except an impervious superiority and , as he sat , cold and unimpressed upon the front bench , like a large , white lump , it must be said that he made a discouraging audience `` to play to . ''