midnight
The substance of what he read was as follows : A cable message had reached San Francisco from Honolulu in the afternoon of the previous day , announcing that an aeroplane had alighted there about three o'clock that morning , the owner , a Lieutenant Thistleton -LRB- so it was corrupted -RRB- Smith declaring that he had come from Samoa in sixteen hours , and was proceeding to San Francisco . He had left three hours later , having waited only to take in a stock of petrol . On receipt of this message the editor of every newspaper in the city had arranged for a relay of reporters to be up all night and watch for the arrival of this extraordinary machine . Shortly after midnight the hum of the propellers was heard over Golden Gate , and a light in the sky indicating the course of the aeroplane , a dozen journalists , in motor-cars , rushed after it , but were hopelessly out-distanced . They discovered it on the outskirts of the city . The airmen had already landed . The reporter who was first in the race seized upon Lieutenant Smith , and learning that he had only alighted to obtain more petrol , rushed him back to the city in his car .