midnight
`` Missed him , '' he said in answer to the porter 's look of inquiry . `` Friend of yo 's , suh ? '' `` Well , '' said the officer , smiling grimly , `` I should have liked to shake hands with him . '' His desire would have been keener could he in any way have known the nature of the message which the curious stranger had sent to a squalid little house on William Street in Newport : A. leaves here for torpedo station on midnight train . Though he did not know it , despatches of a similar nature had been following or preceding him these past three months , a fact certainly not uncomplimentary to an officer who had been out of the academy a scant ten years , whatever the additional aspects . As it was , Armitage , not given to worrying , dismissed the incident for the time being and yielded full attention to the voluble porter . The young officer was from Kentucky , had been raised with negroes , and understood and liked them thoroughly .