five o'clock
It is getting monotonous . I wish that the President and the Senate would begin to play , but they look as impassive as the statues in the parks . '' The rooms filled quickly . By five o'clock the usual crowd was there , and if it had its dowdy battalion as ever , there was no evidence that the more fortunate had lost their interest in dress , despite the warlike state of their nerves . Not that all were for war , by any means . Many were clinging to a forlorn hope , but they could talk of nothing else . Betty had just listened to the twenty-eighth theory of the cause of the Maine 's destruction when she turned in response to a familiar drawl .