Ten o'clock
In a few minutes Anthony became aware of a persistently obnoxious sound -- the small , defiant Sicilian had fallen audibly asleep . It was wearisome to contemplate that animate protoplasm , reasonable by courtesy only , shut up in a car by an incomprehensible civilization , taken somewhere , to do a vague something without aim or significance or consequence . Anthony sighed , opened a newspaper which he had no recollection of buying , and began to read by the dim yellow light . Ten o'clock bumped stuffily into eleven ; the hours clogged and caught and slowed down . Amazingly the train halted along the dark countryside , from time to time indulging in short , deceitful movements backward or forward , and whistling harsh paeans into the high October night . Having read his newspaper through , editorials , cartoons , and war-poems , his eye fell on a half-column headed _ Shakespeareville , Kansas _ . It seemed that the Shakespeareville Chamber of Commerce had recently held an enthusiastic debate as to whether the American soldiers should be known as `` Sammies '' or `` Battling Christians . ''