eight o'clock in the evening
At daybreak began the hullabaloo which attends Christmas morning in a house where there is an adored child , and only one . The After-Clap , with the preternatural knowledge claimed for him by Kettle , knew that it was Christmas morning and a day of riot and license for him . At an early hour he began to storm the earth and stun the air . There was a Christmas tree for him and for the eight McGillicuddies , and the day was so full that Mrs. Fortescue found it hard to get time in which to give Kettle the necessary wigging for taking the baby from his bed and carrying him out of doors at eight o'clock in the evening because he waked up and said `` Horsey . '' In vain Kettle pleaded `` fo ' Gord -- '' always a forerunner of a tarradiddle -- that he `` did n't have no notion on the blessed yearth as Miss Betty would mind , '' and also wept copiously when Mrs. Fortescue frankly told him that he was a tarradiddler , and made , for the hundredth time , a very awful threat to Kettle . `` But I can tell you this much , '' she said , with great severity , `` that if you keep on doing everything the baby tells you to do , I will buy you a ticket back to Virginia and send you home . Do you understand me ? ''