eight o'clock in the morning
Also , Mr. Tobias , the floorwalker concerned with the toy department was `` a spalpeen and a pie-faced mutt from ` way back , '' whereas Fred Thorpe was a well-known angel . Yet , on the other hand , not only were more than half the toy assistants men , but many of the customers also were men . This made the department more lively to be in than Blouses , and some girls considered Toys next best to Gloves . It was almost like coming into a strange shop when Win arrived with Sadie before eight o'clock in the morning for her first day in Toyland , as Earl Usher facetiously named it . The December morning hardly knew yet that it had been born , and though already there was life in the Hands -- fierce , active life -- those pulsing white globes which made artificial sunshine whatever the weather , had not yet begun to glow like illuminated snowballs . Shadowy men were lifting pale shrouds off the counters . Voices chattering in the gloom were like voices of monkeys in a dusky jungle -- a jungle quite unlike that fairy place where Peter Rolls had talked of Win to Lady Eileen .