It was all carefully reckoned in the fat ledgers which the pasty faced clerks scribbled in morning, noon and night. Debit and credit, with a red line down the middle of the page.

He would start at noon and work all through the night till thewhistle of the steamer that goes every morning from Capri to Naples told him that it was fiveo clockand time to go to bed.

One of the two dates each year when at noon the Sun is directly overhead at the equator and day and night are of equal length.