three o'clock
It was like a shipwreck where the whole fleet is flung upon the reefs , and the sailors , drunk and insane , struggle with death each in his own awful way . It was like the rout where frenzied victors ride after and among frenzied vanquished to shoot and stab and saber . And while this battle , precipitated by the passions of a few `` captains of industry , '' raged in Wall Street and filled the nation with the clamor of ruined or triumphant gamblers , ten-score thousand toilers in the two great enterprises directly involved toiled tranquilly on -- herding sheep and shearing them , weaving cloths and dyeing them , driving engines , handling freight , conducting trains , usefully busy , adding to the sum of human happiness , subtracting from the sum of human misery . At three o'clock Dumont sank back among his cushions and pillows . His child , his other self , his Woolens Monopoly , was again his own ; his enemies were under his heel , as much so as those heaps and coils of ticker-tape he had been churning in his excitement . `` I 'm dead tired , '' he muttered , his face ghastly , his body relaxed in utter exhaustion . He closed his eyes .