noon
Strutting violently about the room , he simulated a dynamic and irresistible efficiency . `` We 'll buy a car to-morrow . '' Life , limping after imagination 's ten-league boots , saw them out of town a week later in a cheap but sparkling new roadster , saw them through the chaotic unintelligible Bronx , then over a wide murky district which alternated cheerless blue-green wastes with suburbs of tremendous and sordid activity . They left New York at eleven and it was well past a hot and beatific noon when they moved rakishly through Pelham . `` These are n't towns , '' said Gloria scornfully , `` these are just city blocks plumped down coldly into waste acres . I imagine all the men here have their mustaches stained from drinking their coffee too quickly in the morning . '' `` And play pinochle on the commuting trains . ''