ten o'clock
`` How should I know ? '' exclaimed Travers , impatiently , waving away such unprofitable discussion with a sweep of his stick , and coming down to the serious affairs of life . `` What I want to know is to what theatre we are going -- that 's what I want to know . '' Young Lieutenant Claflin left the Brooklyn Navy-yard at an early hour , and arrived at the recruiting-office at ten o'clock . It was the day before Christmas , and even the Bowery , `` the thieves ' highway , '' had taken on the emblems and spirit of the season , and the young officer smiled grimly as he saw a hard-faced proprietor of a saloon directing the hanging of wreaths and crosses over the door of his palace and telling the assistant barkeeper to make the red holly berries `` show up '' better . The cheap lodging-houses had trailed the green over their illuminated transoms , and even on Mott Street the Chinamen had hung up strings of evergreen over the doors of the joss-house and the gambling-house next door . And the tramps and good-for-nothings , just back from the Island , had an animated , expectant look , as though something certainly was going to happen .