noon
They were more skilled than Hugh in the use of tools and thought it rather an accident that he had done what they had not done . As he had grown rich by that road they also tried their hand at inventions . One of them made a patent door hinge that Steve sold for ten thousand dollars , keeping half the money for his services , as he had done in the case of Hugh 's car-dumping apparatus . At the noon hour the men hurried to their houses to eat and then came back to loaf before the factory and smoke their noonday pipes . They talked of money-making , of the price of food stuffs , of the advisability of a man 's buying a house on the partial payment plan . Sometimes they talked of women and of their adventures with women . Hugh sat by himself inside the door of the shop and listened .