five o'clock on Friday
`` Poor old Tommie ! '' he thought ruefully , `` I do n't know why I should go on hating him because he will blab -- it 's the nature o ' the beast -- that stupid little much-divorced animal that married him -- '' he glared at two innocent young shoppers who were passing , `` Gad , women are such sophisticated cows nowadays -- '' Spring always made him wretched , spring always made him fretful , spring always sent him off for the woods somewhere , any woods so long as it was woods . He pondered over whether he could get away Friday or would have to wait till Saturday morning , and eventually decided on Saturday , consulting a memorandum book scowlingly as he did so , jotting down appointments . He noted that he would have to be in his office at five o'clock on Friday . Somebody or other was going to telephone him about something . Which made him reflect irritably that of all the mechanical devices of a mechanical age the thing he hated most of all was a telephone ! He could scarcely endure the stupid way everybody shrieked `` Hello ! ''