quarter past six
He could not think of any one who had done the facts of the eve of sailing on an Atlantic liner . He thought he would use the material first in a letter to the paper and afterwards in a poem ; but he found himself unable to grasp the notion of its essential relation to the choice between chicken croquettes and sweetbreads as entrees of the restaurant dinner where he had been offered neither ; he knew that he had begun to dream , and that he must get up . He was just going to get up , when he woke to a sense of freshness in the air , penetrating from the new day outside . He looked at his watch and found it was quarter past six ; he glanced round the state-room and saw that he had passed the night alone in it . Then he splashed himself hastily at the basin next his berth , and jumped into his clothes , and went on deck , anxious to lose no feature or emotion of the ship 's departure . When she was fairly off he returned to his room to change the thick coat he had put on at the instigation of the early morning air . His room-mate was still absent , but he was now represented by his state-room baggage , and Burnamy tried to infer him from it .