midday
However , we must manage it . '' I felt the day was passing on , but I did not get excited about that . `` Slow is swiftest , '' Parload used to say , and I meant to get everything thought out completely , to take a long aim and then to act as a bullet flies . I hesitated at a pawnshop on my way home to my midday meal , but I determined not to pledge my watch until I could bring my overcoat also . I ate silently , revolving plans . Section 3 After our midday dinner -- it was a potato-pie , mostly potato with some scraps of cabbage and bacon -- I put on my overcoat and got it out of the house while my mother was in the scullery at the back . A scullery in the old world was , in the case of such houses as ours , a damp , unsavory , mainly subterranean region behind the dark living-room kitchen , that was rendered more than typically dirty in our case by the fact that into it the coal-cellar , a yawning pit of black uncleanness , opened , and diffused small crunchable particles about the uneven brick floor .