three o'clock in the morning
Nicholas had been heard to say that it would cost three hundred millions if it cost a penny before they 'd done with it ! The income-tax was seriously threatened . Still , there would be South Africa for their money , once for all . And though the possessive instinct felt badly shaken at three o'clock in the morning , it recovered by breakfast-time with the recollection that one gets nothing in this world without paying for it . So , on the whole , people went about their business much as if there were no war , no concentration camps , no slippery de Wet , no feeling on the Continent , no anything unpleasant . Indeed , the attitude of the nation was typified by Timothy 's map , whose animation was suspended -- for Timothy no longer moved the flags , and they could not move themselves , not even backwards and forwards as they should have done . Suspended animation went further ; it invaded Forsyte ` Change , and produced a general uncertainty as to what was going to happen next .