four o'clock
There was one -- it had once adorned the sofa in the garden-room -- covered with red poppies -LRB- very easy to cut out -RRB- , and Miss Mapp dragged it dustily from its corner , setting in motion a perfect cascade of cardboard lids and some door-handles . Withers had answered the telephone , and came to announce that Twemlow the grocer regretted he had only two large tins of corned beef , but -- `` Then say I will have the tongue as well , Withers , '' said Miss Mapp . `` Just a tongue -- and then I shall want you and Mary to do some cutting out for me . '' The three went to work with feverish energy , for Diva had got a start , and by four o'clock that afternoon there were enough poppies cut out to furnish , when in seed , a whole street of opium dens . The dress selected for decoration was , apart from a few mildew-spots , the colour of ripe corn , which was superbly appropriate for September . `` Poppies in the corn , '' said Miss Mapp over and over to herself , remembering some sweet verses she had once read by Bernard Shaw or Clement Shorter or somebody like that about a garden of sleep somewhere in Norfolk ... `` No one can work as neatly as you , Withers , '' she said gaily , `` and I shall ask you to do the most difficult part . I want you to sew my lovely poppies over the collar and facings of the jacket , just spacing them a little and making a dainty irregularity .