three o’clock
The streets are thronged with cattle lowing miserably . `` Buyers , '' men whose business it is to carry the half-fed Connacht beasts to the fattening pastures of Meath and Kildare , assemble in large numbers and haggle over prices from early dawn till noon . No better occasion for the exploitation of a cause could possibly be chosen . And three o'clock was a very good hour . By that time the business of the fair is well over . The buying and selling is finished . But no one has gone home , and no one is more than partially drunk .