eight o'clock
He crawled alone in a smashed world . On the second day following , he found himself able to light a cigarette ; and , glancing about him with faint pluckings of convalescent interest , began to recognize some landmarks . On the third day , he was frankly wondering whether a girl with such overstrained , not to say hysterical ideals of conduct , would , after all , be a very comfortable person to spend one 's life with . On the evening of this day , about half-past eight o'clock , he emerged from his mother 's house , light overcoat over his arm in deference to his evening clothes , and started briskly down the street . On the second block , as luck had it , he overtook Tommy Semple walking the same way . `` Gardiner , '' said Semple , `` when are you going to get over all this uplift rot and come back to Semple and West ? '' The question fell in so marvelously with West 's mood of acute discontent with all that his life had been for the past two years , that it looked to him strangely like Providence .