afternoon, about five o'clock
Well , good-bye to you , sir '' -- and , as certain coin changed hands -- `` thank ye , sir , kindly . Wish you a pleasant voyage and a rare good picking up of honours and glories , and gold and silver likewise , there across the seas and oceans where you 're a-going to . '' BOOK II THE HARD SCHOOL OF THINGS AS THEY ARE It was afternoon , about five o'clock . The fine September weather , hot and cloudless , lasted still . The air was heavy with garden scents , the aromatic sweetness of sun-baked gorse and pine-scrub on the warren , and with the reek off the mud-flats of the Haven , the tide being low . Upon the sandy skirts of the Bar , across the river just opposite , three cormorants -- glossy black against the yellow -- postured in extravagant angular attitudes drying their wings .