five o'clock
On any other lips Elliott 's deliberate neatness of phrase might have sounded solemnly funny . `` Thoroughly logical , of course , -- thoroughly possible . And yet , somehow it does n't fit the case . We 've had the usual Monday morning vacancies , right along , as you know ; but the delinquents always turned up before the five o'clock whistle blew , or at least reported Tuesday morning . But this is the end of the week and we 're short right this minute very close to thirty men . They are n't coming back , Mr. O'Mara ; on the contrary , they continue to dribble away , a few every day . And though they appear to do nothing but talk their time away in the saloons in the lower end of the town , they seem to have just as much money to spend , as they did when they were getting their time checks from us . ''