two o'clock in the
morning
Then , presently I _ did _ see something , I saw myself inside the bowl -- in a kind of vision . I saw myself just as distinctly as I ever saw anything . In order that you may understand this , doctor , I must explain that Captain Herrick took me home from the ball . It was two o'clock in the morning when we left the place and it had blown up cold during the rain , so that the streets were a glare of ice and our taxi was skidding horribly . When we got to Twelfth Street and Fifth Avenue there came a frightful explosion ; a gas main had taken fire and flames were shooting twenty feet into the air . I was terrified , for it made me think of Paris -- the air raids , the night sirens , the long-distance cannon . Captain Herrick saw that I was quite hysterical and said that I must n't think of going up to Eightieth Street .