noon
He could only sigh and wonder . `` Life works out pretty peculiarly , '' he thought ; for he could n't go back now , though the reason he could n't was not clearly apparent . He had to go ahead . He was out in his taxicab again the next morning , and by noon he had secured what he wanted . It was curiously significant that he worked so quickly . All the years during which his wife had pressed him toward his present shift he had sworn to himself , as well as to her , that he would never yield ; and yet when he did yield he had no plans to make , because he found them already prepared and worked out in detail in his mind ; as if he had long contemplated the `` step '' he believed himself incapable of taking . Sometimes he had thought of improving his income by exchanging his little collection of bonds for a `` small rental property , '' if he could find `` a good buy '' ; and he had spent many of his spare hours rambling over the enormously spreading city and its purlieus , looking for the ideal `` buy . ''