eight in the evening
`` Oh , Mary Ann ! '' said they . `` Must you always adorn every statement with your alleged humor ? '' It came to pass that at eight in the evening a calm , smooth , brilliant , affable man sat at Vuyning 's right hand during dinner . And when the ones who pass their lives in city streets spoke of skyscrapers or of the little Czar on his far , frozen throne , or of insignificant fish from inconsequential streams , this big , deep-chested man , faultlessly clothed , and eyed like an Emperor , disposed of their Lilliputian chatter with a wink of his eyelash . And then he painted for them with hard , broad strokes a marvellous lingual panorama of the West . He stacked snow-topped mountains on the table , freezing the hot dishes of the waiting diners .