midday
His son , they said , was squeezing oil out of cocoa-nuts for a living on some God-forsaken islet of the Indian Ocean ; but it was from that patent slip in a lonely wooded bay that had sprung the workshops of the Consolidated Docks Company , with its three graving basins carved out of solid rock , its wharves , its jetties , its electric-light plant , its steam-power houses -- with its gigantic sheer-legs , fit to lift the heaviest weight ever carried afloat , and whose head could be seen like the top of a queer white monument peeping over bushy points of land and sandy promontories , as you approached the New Harbor from the west . There had been a time when men counted : there were not so many carriages in the colony then , though Mr. Denham , he fancied , had a buggy . And Captain Whalley seemed to be swept out of the great avenue by the swirl of a mental backwash . He remembered muddy shores , a harbor without quays , the one solitary wooden pier -LRB- but that was a public work -RRB- jutting out crookedly , the first coal-sheds erected on Monkey Point , that caught fire mysteriously and smoldered for days , so that amazed ships came into a roadstead full of sulphurous smoke , and the sun hung blood-red at midday . He remembered the things , the faces , and something more besides -- like the faint flavor of a cup quaffed to the bottom , like a subtle sparkle of the air that was not to be found in the atmosphere of to-day . In this evocation , swift and full of detail like a flash of magnesium light into the niches of a dark memorial hall , Captain Whalley contemplated things once important , the efforts of small men , the growth of a great place , but now robbed of all consequence by the greatness of accomplished facts , by hopes greater still ; and they gave him for a moment such an almost physical grip upon time , such a comprehension of our unchangeable feelings , that he stopped short , struck the ground with his stick , and ejaculated mentally , `` What the devil am I doing here ! '' He seemed lost in a sort of surprise ; but he heard his name called out in wheezy tones once , twice -- and turned on his heels slowly .