five o'clock
It was by no means an easy feat to retain his seat on Charley 's back ; it would have been still more difficult to dismount , at his steed 's brisk pace ; and Nickey was most painfully conscious of his attire , as Charley turned up the road which led straight to the village . At each corner the procession was reinforced by a number of village boys who added their quota to the general uproar and varied the monotony of the proceeding by occasionally throwing a tin can at the rider on the white horse . When Charley passed the rectory , and the green , and turned into Church Street , Nickey felt that he had struck rock bottom of shameful humiliation . For many years it had been Charley 's habit to take Mrs. Burke down to church on Wednesday afternoons for the five o'clock service ; and although he had been out of commission and docked for repairs for some time , his subliminal self must have got in its work , and the old habit asserted itself : to the church he went , attended at a respectful distance by the Bearded Lady , the Fat Man , the Snake Charmer , the King of the Cannibal Islands , the Living Skeleton , and the Wild Man from Borneo , to say nothing of a large and effective chorus of roaring villagers bringing up the rear . It really was quite clever of Charley to recall that , this being Wednesday , it was the proper day to visit the church , -- as clever as it was disturbing to Nickey when he , too , recalled that it was about time for the service to be over , and that his mother must be somewhere on the premises , to say nothing of the assembled mothers of the entire stock company -- and the rector , and the rector 's wife . Mrs. Burke , poor woman , was quite unconscious of what awaited her , as she emerged from the service with the rest of the congregation . It was an amazed parent that caught sight of her son and heir scrambling off the back of his steed onto the horse-block in front of the church , clad in short swimming trunks and much bluing .