half after noon
At times when he was facetious as he had been this morning I was wont to lose sight of the fact that with Farrar the manner was not the man , and to forget the warmth of his friendship . I was again to be reminded of this . `` Well , Crocker , '' he said briefly , `` I would willingly give up this year 's state contract to have known it . '' It was , accurately as I can remember , half after noon when Mr. Cooke first caught the smoke over the point , for the sun was very high : at two our fate had been decided . I have already tried to describe a part of what took place in that hour and a half , although even now I can not get it all straight in my mind . Races , when a great deal is at stake , are more or less chaotic : a close four miles in a college eight is a succession of blurs with lucid but irrelevant intervals . The weary months of hard work are forgotten , and you are quite as apt to think of your first velocipede , or of the pie that is awaiting you in the boathouse , as of victory and defeat .