Half past six in the morning
For light and colour give me every time an excursion out of Mariposa down the lake to the Indian 's Island out of sight in the morning mist . Talk of your Papal Zouaves and your Buckingham Palace Guard ! I want to see the Mariposa band in uniform and the Mariposa Knights of Pythias with their aprons and their insignia and their picnic baskets and their five-cent cigars ! Half past six in the morning , and all the crowd on the wharf and the boat due to leave in half an hour . Notice it ! -- in half an hour . Already she 's whistled twice -LRB- at six , and at six fifteen -RRB- , and at any minute now , Christie Johnson will step into the pilot house and pull the string for the warning whistle that the boat will leave in half an hour .