7:15
For ten years Doctor Queerington and Mr. Gooch had played pinochle every Friday evening . The Doctor did not especially enjoy it , except as one of those incidents that grows acceptable by long repetition . He was a born routinist , regarding a well-regulated world as a place where everything ran in the same grooves to eternity . One of his chief sources of satisfaction in regard to his second marriage was that it promised not to interfere with those established laws which regulated his day , from the prompt breakfast at 7:15 to the long hours with his books in the evening . In short , Doctor Queerington was a sort of well-regulated human clock , announcing his opinions as irrevocably as the striker announces the hours , and ticking along so monotonously between times that one almost forgot he was there . If the Friday evening game was to him merely a habit , to Mr. Gooch it was an occasion . Having once seated himself , and glanced around to make sure his hand was not reflected in a mirror , he spread his cards gingerly in his palm with only the corners visible , squared his jaw and proceeded with solemnity to observe the full rigor of the game .