four in the afternoon
He was nipping gin all the while . Sometimes he fell asleep , and awoke again , whimpering and shivering , and every now and again he would ask me why I wanted to marry Uma . `` My friend , '' I was telling myself all day , `` you must not come to be an old gentleman like this . '' It might be four in the afternoon , perhaps , when the back door was thrust slowly open , and a strange old native woman crawled into the house almost on her belly . She was swathed in black stuff to her heels ; her hair was grey in swatches ; her face was tattooed , which was not the practice in that island ; her eyes big and bright and crazy . These she fixed upon me with a rapt expression that I saw to be part acting . She said no plain word , but smacked and mumbled with her lips , and hummed aloud , like a child over its Christmas pudding .