noon
a dinnerless day ! such a day had better be a night . Again : twelve o'clock is the natural hour for us men-of-war 's men to dine , because at that hour the very time-pieces we have invented arrive at their terminus ; they can get no further than twelve ; when straightway they continue their old rounds again . Doubtless , Adam and Eve dined at twelve ; and the Patriarch Abraham in the midst of his cattle ; and old Job with his noon mowers and reapers , in that grand plantation of Uz ; and old Noah himself , in the Ark , must have gone to dinner at precisely _ eight bells _ -LRB- noon -RRB- , with all his floating families and farm-yards . But though this antediluvian dinner hour is rejected by modern Commodores and Captains , it still lingers among '' _ the people _ '' under their command . Many sensible things banished from high life find an asylum among the mob . Some Commodores are very particular in seeing to it , that no man on board the ship dare to dine after his -LRB- the Commodore 's , -RRB- own dessert is cleared away .