nine in the morning
It saved their feelings , he had heard . The waiter bowed and retired . Adna spoke to his family : `` Since we pay the same , anyway , might 's well have the best they got . '' The waiter gave the three a meal fitter for the ancient days when kings had dinner at nine in the morning than for these degenerate times when breakfast hardly lives up to its name . The waiter and his cronies stood at a safe distance and watched the Thropps surround that banquet . They wondered where the old man got money enough to buy such breakfasts and why he did n't spend some of it on clothes . The favorite theory was that he was a farmer on whose acres somebody had discovered oil or gold and bought him out for a million .