nine o'clock in the evening
As soon as we handed him cards showing us to be American naval officers he 'd raise his cap to us , and that would be the end of it . '' `` I do n't like to be present at rows in a place of this kind , '' Ensign Darrin insisted . `` Then we 'd better be going , '' proposed Ensign Dalzell . The place was Gibraltar , and the time nine o'clock in the evening . The two friends were seated well back in one of the several Spanish vaudeville theatres that flourish more or less in the city on the Great Rock , even in such times as this period of the great European War . The theatre was not a low place , or it would not have been permitted to exist in Gibraltar , which , even in peace times , is under the strictest military rule , made much more strict at the beginning of the great war . The performance was an ordinary one and rather dull .