eight o'clock
And if in the sweep and turmoil of late events he seemed to have forgotten for a little that feud which had brought him overseas , he roused from this brief interlude of saddened dreaming with the iron of deadly purpose newly entered into his soul , and in his heart one dominant thought , that now his hour with Ekstrom could not , must not , be long deferred . In the street there rose an uproar of inhuman bawling . Lanyard went to the private door , hailed one of the husky authors of the din , an itinerant news-vendor , and disbursed a nickel coin for one cent 's worth of spushul uxtry and four cents ' worth of howling impudence . He found no more of interest in the newspaper than the information that the _ Saratoga _ had been sighted off Fire Island and was expected to dock in New York not later than eight o'clock that night . This , however , was acceptable reading . Lanyard had work to do which were better done before `` Karl '' and his crew found opportunity to communicate directly with their collaborators ashore , work which it were unwise to initiate before nightfall lent a cloak of shadows to hoodwink the ever-possible adventitious German spy . Nor was he so fatuous as to fancy it would profit him to call before nine o'clock at the house on West End Avenue .