about noon
* * * * * In my sleep it was as though someone suddenly shook my shoulder with urgent ' _ Up ! up _ ! ' It was neither Clark nor Mew , but a dream merely : for Clark and Mew , when I started up , I saw lying still in their sleeping-bag . I suppose it must have been about noon . I sat staring a minute , and my first numb thought was somehow this : that the Countess Clodagh had prayed me ` Be first ' -- for her . Wondrous little now cared I for the Countess Clodagh in her far unreal world of warmth -- precious little for the fortune which she coveted : millions on millions of fortunes lay unregarded around me . But that thought , _ Be first !