ten o'clock
The third day of the ghost-dance at Cliff Crest was to be the day of the big event -- as the office parlance had it . The ceremonies began at sunrise with a breakfast to which half a dozen of the captains and kings of the besieging host of the Pretender were bidden . It seems to have been a modest orgy , with nothing more astonishing than a new gold-band china set to dishearten the enemy . By ten o'clock Priscilla Winthrop and the Whist Club had recovered from that ; but they had been asked to the luncheon -- the star feature of the week 's round of gayety . It is just as well to be frank , and say that they went with fear and trembling . Panic and terror were in their ranks , for they knew a crisis was at hand . It came when they were `` ushered into the dining-hall , '' as our paper so grandly put it , and saw in the great oak-beamed room a table laid on the polished bare wood -- a table laid for forty-eight guests , with a doily for every plate , and every glass , and every salt-cellar , and -- here the mosque fell on the heads of the howling dervishes -- forty-eight soup-spoons , forty-eight silver-handled knives and forks ; forty-eight butter-spreaders , forty-eight spoons , forty-eight salad forks , forty-eight ice-cream spoons , forty-eight coffee spoons .