ten o’clock at night
He was modestly benevolent , the boy -- that was at least what he had been capable of the superiority of making out his chance to be ; and one had one 's self literally not had the gumption to get in ahead of him . If we should go into all that occupied our friend in the watches of the night we should have to mend our pen ; but an instance or two may mark for us the vividness with which he could remember . He remembered the two absurdities that , if his presence of mind _ had _ failed , were the things that had had most to do with it . He had never in his life seen a young man come into a box at ten o'clock at night , and would , if challenged on the question in advance , have scarce been ready to pronounce as to different ways of doing so . But it was in spite of this definite to him that Chad had had a way that was wonderful : a fact carrying with it an implication that , as one might imagine it , he knew , he had learned , how . Here already then were abounding results ; he had on the spot and without the least trouble of intention taught Strether that even in so small a thing as that there were different ways . He had done in the same line still more than this ; had by a mere shake or two of the head made his old friend observe that the change in him was perhaps more than anything else , for the eye , a matter of the marked streaks of grey , extraordinary at his age , in his thick black hair ; as well as that this new feature was curiously becoming to him , did something for him , as characterisation , also even -- of all things in the world -- as refinement , that had been a good deal wanted .