about noon
`` I _ must _ find out , if I can -- for reasons which I ca n't explain to any one . Was it just at noon ? '' Now this veteran master of packet boats was the last man in the world to be heroically accurate when his sympathies were appealed to by a winsome young woman in evident distress ; and while he would cheerfully have sworn that it was eleven o'clock or one o'clock when John Gavitt came aboard , if he had known certainly which statement would relieve her , her query left him no hint to steer by . So he said : `` Oh , I say , ` about noon , ' but it might have been an hour or two before , or any time after , till we cleared . But we 'll find out . We 'll have the fellow up here and put him on the witness stand . Or I 'll go below and dig into him for you myself , if you say so . ''