ten o'clock
Peake despised , or rather he ignored , the aesthetic crazes which had run through fashionable Hillport like an infectious fever , ruthlessly decimating its turned and twisted mahogany and its floriferous carpets and wall-papers . That the soft thick pile under his feet would wear for twenty years , and that the Welsbach incandescent mantles on the chandelier saved thirty per cent , in gas-bills while increasing the light by fifty per cent. : it was these and similar facts which were uppermost in his mind as he gazed round that room , in which every object spoke of solid , unassuming luxury and represented the best value to be obtained for money spent . He desired , of a Saturday night , nothing better than such a room , a couple of packs of cards , and the presence of wife and child and his two life-long friends , Sneyd and Lovatt -- safe men both . After cards were over -- and on Lovatt 's account play ceased at ten o'clock -- they would discuss Bursley and Bursley folk with a shrewd sagacity and an intimate and complete knowledge of circumstance not to be found in combination anywhere outside a small industrial town . To listen to Sneyd and Mrs Peake , when each sought to distance the other in tracing a genealogy , was to learn the history of a whole community and the secret springs of the actions which constituted its evolution . `` Have n't you any news for me ? '' asked Peake , during a pause in the talk .