nearly midnight
Josie gave a little laugh . `` You 're a puzzling proposition , Professor , '' she whispered to herself , `` and you came near fooling me very properly . For I imagined you were on your way to Washington , and here you 've mixed up with another important job ! '' When Josie reached the hotel it was nearly midnight . Half the lights in the office had been extinguished and behind the desk , reading a novel , the night clerk sprawled in an easy chair . She had n't seen the night clerk before . He was a sallow-faced boy , scarcely twenty years old , attired in a very striking suit of clothes and wearing a gorgeous jewelled scarf-pin in his cravat .