nearly midnight
Forthwith began a family row that brought the entire household -- guests , servants and proprietress -- on the run to the Koblin apartments . When Mrs. Koblin 's frightened screams had ceased , and Max Koblin had calmed down sufficiently to offer an evasive explanation , the guests trooped back to the piazza , and three games of auction pinocle , which had started in the dining-room after the tables had been cleared , came to an abrupt close . Instead , the players foregathered with the other guests in the porch rockers . There they discussed the incident until nearly midnight ; and , as no one had been an eyewitness of the affray , there were as many versions of it as may be mathematically demonstrated where one blow is struck among three persons . Some had it that Sidney had attacked his father and others that Mrs. Koblin had assaulted Sidney , but a large feminine majority favoured a construction of the matter as one of wife-beating . Abe alone correctly surmised the turn that Sidney 's affairs had taken and he sat on the piazza in conscience-stricken solitude long after all the other guests had retired . He blamed himself for the entire affair and he smoked cigar after cigar before he sought his bed .