midnight
before
But all of them , though they were associated with him and hoped to ride to fortune on the wave that carried him there , recognized themselves as subordinates in the enterprises he undertook . They were merely heads of departments , and they took orders like trusted clerks with whom the owner sometimes unbends and advises . Now he heard their reports , asked an occasional searching question , and swiftly gave decisions of far-reaching import . It was past midnight before he had finished with them , and instead of retiring for the sleep he might have been expected to need , he spent the rest of the night inspecting the actual workings of the properties he had not seen for six days . Hour after hour he passed examining the developments , sometimes in the breasts of the workings and again consulting with engineers and foremen in charge . Light was breaking in the sky before he stepped from the cage of the Jack Pot and boarded a street-car for his rooms . Cornishmen and Hungarians and Americans , going with their dinner-buckets to work , met him and received each a nod or a word of greeting from this splendidly built young Hermes in miners ' slops , who was to many of them , in their fancy , a deliverer from the slavery which the Consolidated was ready to force upon them .