noon
`` Well ? '' he enquired after watching the driver muzzle the eviscerated tyre for some eloquent moments . Turning up a distorted face , the other gesticulated with profane abandon , by way of good measure interpolating a few disconnected words and phrases . Lanyard gathered that this was the second accident of the same nature since noon that the cab consequently lacked a spare tyre , and that short of a trip to the garage the accident was irremediable . So he said -LRB- intelligently -RRB- it could n't be helped , paid the man and over tipped precisely as though their journey had been successfully consummated , and standing over his luggage watched the maimed vehicle limp miserably off through the teeming mists . Now in normal course his plight should have been relieved within two minutes . But it was n't .