six o'clock
When she got into the dining saloon she found small wars in progress . About a hundred and fifty people were trying to sit down in a hundred seats . The stewards looked harassed as they explained that there was another meal-time half an hour after the first . Knollys was trying , with impassive dignity , to prove mathematically to an old lady that by waiting until six o'clock for her tea to-day and automatically shifting all her meal-times on half an hour she was losing nothing ; and , after all , it would all be the same whether she had her tea at five or six or seven a hundred years hence . But she thought there was some catch in it , for she expressed an intention of seeing the captain , and then , thinking better of it , stood behind an already occupied chair with the air of Horatius holding the bridge . When at last order was restored and Marcella sat down , she found that she was at a long table , one of three that ran from end to end of the saloon . Ole Fred and his three friends were at the same table , a little higher up .