midnight
laughed Phelan as he landed with a spring under the dilapidated shed . `` Cheer up , old pard ; you look as if all your past misdeeds had come before you in your drowning hour . '' Corporal , shivering and unhappy , crept under cover , and dumbly demanded of Phelan what he intended to do about it . `` Light a blaze , sure , '' said Phelan , `` and linger here in the air of the tropics till the midnight freight comes along . '' Scraping together the old wood and débris in the rear of the shed , and extricating with some difficulty a small tin match-box from his saturated clothes , he knelt before the pile and used all of his persuasive powers to induce it to ignite . At the first feeble blaze Corporal 's spirits rose so promptly that he had to be restrained . `` Easy there !