About ten o'clock
`` There was about 1,500 grown-up adults in Bird City that had arrived at years of indiscretion ; and the majority of 'em required from three to twenty drinks a day to make life endurable . The Blue Snake was the only place where they could get 'em till the flood subsided . It was beautiful and simple as all truly great swindles are . `` About ten o'clock the silver dollars dropping on the bar slowed down to playing two-steps and marches instead of jigs . But I looked out the window and saw a hundred or two of our customers standing in line at Bird City Savings and Loan Co. , and I knew they were borrowing more money to be sucked in by the clammy tendrils of the octopus . `` At the fashionable hour of noon everybody went home to dinner . We told the bartenders to take advantage of the lull , and do the same .