five in the
afternoon
He must get the girl and the chaperon off his hands , and be at his business . This was `` Tap Day . '' It is perhaps well to explain what `` Tap Day '' means ; there are people who have not been at Yale or had sons or sweethearts there . In New Haven , on the last Thursday of May , toward five in the afternoon , one becomes aware that the sea of boys which ripples always over the little city has condensed into a river flowing into the campus . There the flood divides and re-divides ; the junior class is separating and gathering from all directions into a solid mass about the nucleus of a large , low-hanging oak tree inside the college fence in front of Durfee Hall . The three senior societies of Yale , Skull and Bones , Scroll and Key , and Wolf 's Head , choose to-day fifteen members each from the junior class , the fifteen members of the outgoing senior class making the choice . Each senior is allotted his man of the juniors , and must find him in the crowd at the tree and tap him on the shoulder and give him the order to go to his room .