midnight
`` Good lord ! '' murmured the person opposite , beginning to manifest an excess of emotion for which I was quite unable to account . `` Then you have been in this train -- your actual footsteps I mean , Mr. Kong ; not your ceremonial abstract subliminal ego -- ever since ? '' To this I replied that his words shone like the moon at midnight with scintillating points of truth ; adding , however , as the courtesies of the occasion required , that I had been so impressed with the many-sided brilliance of his conversation earlier in the day as to render the flight of time practically unnoticed by me . `` But did it never occur to you to ask at one of the stations ? '' he demanded , still continuing to wave his hands incapably from side to side . `` Any of the porters would have told you . ''