midnight
As the tight-packed company slid along , children drowsed or whimpered , short-tempered young men quarreled with the conductor , elderly folk sat in squeezed , plaintive resignation ... . Soon the lights of foundry fires began to show on the sky ; then people started dropping off in the streets of towns enlivened by the glitter of many saloons and an occasional loud glare from the front of a moving-picture theater ... . Through these many miles Randolph and Cope sat silent : there seemed to be a tacit agreement that they need no longer exert themselves to entertain each other . Cope reached home shortly before midnight . By next morning many of the doings of the previous day had quite passed from his mind . Yet a few firm impressions remained . He had had a good swim , if but a brief one , with a companion who had been willing , even if not bold ; he had imposed an acceptable nomenclature upon a somewhat anonymous landscape ; and , in circumstances slightly absurd , or at least unfavorable , he had done his voice and his method high credit in song .