noon
`` Go ahead with the letter , '' urged Tom . `` After dinner I 'll walk over to Five Corners and mail the letter . Incidentally , I 'll make inquiries over there and see whether anyone knows the city in which the Blinders ' crowd has its headquarters . '' So Dick wrote the letter , while others were preparing the noon meal . At one o'clock in the afternoon Tom started , on his round-trip tramp of twenty-two miles . `` A trip like that will take the place of training for one half day , '' Reade explained . Hazelton offered to go with him , but Tom declined on the ground that he could get over ground faster without Harry .