noon
`` Hurray ! George is peeved ! '' snickered Sidney Finkelstein , while a grin went round the table . Gunch revealed the shocking truth : He had seen Babbitt coming out of a motion-picture theater -- at noon ! They kept it up . With a hundred variations , a hundred guffaws , they said that he had gone to the movies during business-hours . He did n't so much mind Gunch , but he was annoyed by Sidney Finkelstein , that brisk , lean , red-headed explainer of jokes .