nearly midnight
Will you come ? '' `` Certainly , '' said Brenton ; `` and I can not tell you how much I appreciate your interest and sympathy . '' Arriving at a brown stone building on the corner of two of the principal streets in Chicago , Brenton and Speed ascended quickly to one of the top floors . It was nearly midnight , and two upper stories of the huge dark building were brilliantly lighted , as was shown on the outside by the long rows of glittering windows . They entered a room where a man was seated at a table , with coat and vest thrown off , and his hat set well back on his head . Cold as it was outside , it was warm in this man 's room , and the room was blue with smoke . A black corn-cob pipe was in his teeth , and the man was writing away as if for dear life , on sheets of coarse white copy paper , stopping now and then to fill up his pipe or to relight it after it had gone out .