about twelve o'clock
I hope we shall pull together , Mr. Barry , '' this with a pleasant smile as he buttoned up his overcoat . `` Ha , there is my boat , and I must take my gaol-birds on board . Good-afternoon . I shall look for you about twelve o'clock . '' Then with a polite inclination of his head he stepped out towards the waiting boat , and left his new chief officer to pursue his way into the city with a light heart . -LSB- 1 -RSB- A now almost obsolete nautical expression for a mattress staffed with straw . A quarter of an hour 's walk through the dimly lighted and squalid streets which intersect Miller 's Point and Church Hill brought Barry out into the glare and noise of the lower part of the principal thoroughfares of the city , which , boisterous as was the night , was fairly thronged with the poorer class of people engaged in their Saturday night 's shopping .