noon
Then come more hotels , a cluster of cheap shops , and a long line of bath-houses facing a lovely curving beach . Bathing is the fashion at the Pier , and everybody goes to the beach at noon . The spectators occupy chairs on the platform in front of the bath-houses , or sit under tents erected on the smooth sand . At high noon the scene is very lively , and even picturesque , for the ladies here dress for bathing with an intention of pleasing . It is generally supposed that the angels in heaven are not edified by this promiscuous bathing , and by the spectacle of a crowd of women tossing about in the surf , but an impartial angel would admit that many of the costumes here are becoming , and that the effect of the red and yellow caps , making a color line in the flashing rollers , is charming . It is true that there are odd figures in the shifting melee -- one solitary old gentleman , who had contrived to get his bathing-suit on hind-side before , wandered along the ocean margin like a lost Ulysses ; and that fat woman and fat man were never intended for this sort of exhibition ; but taken altogether , with its colors , and the silver flash of the breaking waves , the scene was exceedingly pretty . Not the least pretty part of it was the fringe of children tumbling on the beach , following the retreating waves , and flying from the incoming rollers with screams of delight .