midnight
At once , coat in hand , he began to tell his wife all about it . Mrs. Hermann put the palms of her plump hands together ; I smiled and bowed with a heavy heart : the niece got up from her sewing to bring Hermann 's slippers and his embroidered calotte , which he assumed pontifically , talking -LRB- about me -RRB- all the time . Billows of white stuff lay between the chairs on the cabin floor ; I caught the words `` Zwei und dreissig Pfund '' repeated several times , and presently came the beer , which seemed delicious to my throat , parched with running and the emotions of the chase . I did n't get away till well past midnight , long after the women had retired . Hermann had been trading in the East for three years or more , carrying freights of rice and timber mostly . His ship was well known in all the ports from Vladivostok to Singapore . She was his own property .