two in the afternoon
So soon as I arrived I made a systematic exploration of Shaphambury . To this day I retain the clearest memories of the plan I shaped out then , and how my inquiries were incommoded by the overpowering desire of every one to talk of the chances of a German raid , before the Channel Fleet got round to us . I slept at a small public-house in a Shaphambury back street on Sunday night . I did not get on to Shaphambury from Wyvern until two in the afternoon , because of the infrequency of Sunday trains , and I got no clue whatever until late in the afternoon of Monday . As the little local train bumped into sight of the place round the curve of a swelling hill , one saw a series of undulating grassy spaces , amidst which a number of conspicuous notice-boards appealed to the eye and cut up the distant sea horizon . Most of these referred to comestibles or to remedies to follow the comestibles ; and they were colored with a view to be memorable rather than beautiful , to `` stand out '' amidst the gentle grayish tones of the east coast scenery . The greater number , I may remark , of the advertisements that were so conspicuous a factor in the life of those days , and which rendered our vast tree-pulp newspapers possible , referred to foods , drinks , tobacco , and the drugs that promised a restoration of the equanimity these other articles had destroyed .