three in the afternoon
How suddenly its smartness may follow its leisure , how accurately its plunge into luxury may duplicate the suddenness of modern luxury itself , you may observe with your own eyes almost anywhere . You see a little crowd of women come into the Mandarin Tea Room of the St. DuBarry in Novellapolis in the fresh West . When they remove their automobile veils you see that they were once , and very recently , the nicest sort of members of the sewing circle and the W. C. T. U. of Lone Tree Crossing . When the waiter comes along with their cocktails and they begin to sip them out of their tea-cups , you wake up with a jerk to realize that it 's half-past three in the afternoon and the evening has begun . How rapid it all is ! There 's Margaret Simpson . A few years ago you might have seen her pumping the water for Jim 's breakfast , cleaning the lamps , and picking bugs off the potato vines .