noon
We might be so many strangers in a strange place , aloof , suspicious , bitter , not to say truculent . No quip or jest will lighten the gloom . Necessary requests for the sugar or the milk or the stewed apples are phrased with a curtly formal civility . We shall be other men at noon or at night , vastly other , sunnier men , with abundance of quip and jest and playful sally with the acid personal tang . But from warm beds of repose ! We avoid each other 's eyes , and one 's subdued `` please pass that sirup pitcher ! '' is but tolerated like some boorish profanation of a church service .