twelve o'clock
To this Gallito made no comment and , as there was nothing further to say , the subject was , for the time , dropped between them . Hanson had made known his reasons , obvious reasons , for his presence in Paloma , so , as he would have expressed it , he let it go at that and left the observer to draw any conclusions he pleased as to his almost constant presence at the Gallito home , and yet , after all , his visits were only a little more frequent than those of a number of others , and no more so at all than those of Bob Flick . There were long evenings when Hughie played the piano , and when Pearl , now and then , touched the guitar , when Mrs. Gallito indulged in her querulous monotonous reminiscences , while Gallito and various men sat and smoked cigarettes about the card table ; but always , no matter who came or went , there was Flick , silent , impassive , polite , but , as Hanson realized with growing irritation , ever watchful . Gallito sat down to his cards in the evening as regularly as he went to bed exactly at twelve o'clock ; and not cards alone . When he came `` inside '' there were brought forth from various nooks of obscurity in his dwelling other gambling devices , among them a faro layout , a keno goose , and a roulette wheel . Undoubtedly , the play ran high in the Gallito cabin , but although Hanson sometimes sat in at this or that game , more often he sat talking to Pearl in the soft shadow of the porch . To her he made no secret of his infatuation , but it seemed to him that when with her they were ever more constantly and more irritatingly interrupted .