midday
He did not choose the unfrequented thoroughfares , and when people looked into his face he thought , `` If anybody asks me who I am I 'll tell him . '' It was eight hours since he had eaten anything , and he felt weak and faint . Coming upon a coffee-house , he went in and ordered food . The place was full of young clerks at their midday meal . Most of them were reading newspapers which they had folded and propped up on the tables before them , but two who sat near were talking . `` These predictions of the end of the world are a mania , a monomania , which recurs at regular intervals of the world 's history , '' said one . He was a little man with a turned-up nose .