four o'clock
The crowd gathered on the high gallery at the end of the pier added to this effect of reckless holiday enjoyment . Miss Lamont was infected with this gayety , and took a great deal of interest in this peripatetic band , which was playing again on the hotel piazza before dinner , with a sort of mechanical hilariousness . The rink band opposite kept up a lively competition , grinding out go-round music , imparting , if one may say so , a glamour to existence . The band is on hand at the pier at four o'clock to toot again , and presently off , tramping to some other hotel to satisfy the serious pleasure of this people . While Mr. King could not help wondering how all this curious life would strike Irene -- he put his lonesomeness and longing in this way -- and what she would say about it , he endeavored to divert his mind by a study of the conditions , and by some philosophizing on the change that had come over American summer life within a few years . In his investigations he was assisted by Mr. De Long , to whom this social life was absolutely new , and who was disposed to regard it as peculiarly Yankee -- the staid dissipation of a serious-minded people . King , looking at it more broadly , found this pasteboard city by the sea one of the most interesting developments of American life .