noon
Since four o'clock that afternoon , in fact , Mr. Hackley had been out upon a reluctant stint of lawn-mowing , reluctant because he hated all work with a Titanic hatred and sedulously cultivated the conviction that his was a delicate health . In view of the magnificent windfall in connection with the killing of his dog , it had not been his design to accept any more retainers for a long time to come . That occurrence had lifted him , as by the ears , from the proletariat into the capitalistic leisure class ; and the map of the world had become but the portrait of his oyster . But at noon as he lolled upon his rear veranda , chatting kindly with his wife as she hung the linen of quality upon her drying lines , a lady had knocked upon his door , beautiful and insistent , to wheedle his will from him . It was only a tiny bit of a lawn , she had reiterated imploringly , hardly a constitutional to cut , and there was not one tall fellow in all Hunston whom she would permit to touch it but Hackley . Dead to all flattery as he was , his backbone ran to water at the clinging beauty of her smile , and so incredibly betrayed him into yielding . And now , at hard upon half after six o'clock , post-meridian , the dangerous dews of night already beginning to fall , he leaned against a lamp-post , a physical wreck , with a long block and a half still separating him from the comforts of home .