three o’clock
The inhabitants drag themselves hither and thither in languor and uncertainty . Small mobs loiter at the doors of the gin palaces . Costermongers wander aimlessly , calling `` walnuts '' with a cry so melancholy that it sounds as the wail of the hopelessly lost may be imagined to sound when their anguish has been deadened by the monotony of a million years . About two or three o'clock decent working men in their best clothes emerge from the houses in such streets as Nassau Street . It is part of their duty to go out after dinner on Sunday with the wife and children . The husband pushes the perambulator out of the dingy passage , and gazes doubtfully this way and that way , not knowing whither to go , and evidently longing for the Monday , when his work , however disagreeable it may be , will be his plain duty . The wife follows carrying a child , and a boy and girl in unaccustomed apparel walk by her side .