midnight
Never had Hal seen Edward in such a state of excitement . There was something really abnormal about him , Hal realised ; it puzzled him vaguely while he talked , but he did not understand it until his brother told how he had come to be here . He had been attending a dinner-dance at the home of a friend , and Percy Harrigan had got him on the telephone at half past eleven o'clock at night . Percy had had a message from Cartwright , to the effect that Hal was leading a riot in North Valley ; Percy had painted the situation in such lurid colours that Edward had made a dash and caught the midnight train , wearing his evening clothes , and without so much as a tooth-brush with him ! Hal could hardly keep from bursting out laughing . His brother , his punctilious and dignified brother , alighting from a sleeping-car at seven o'clock in the morning , wearing a dress suit and a silk hat ! And here he was , Edward Warner Junior , the fastidious , who never paid less than a hundred and fifty dollars for a suit of clothes , clad in a `` hand-me-down '' for which he had expended twelve dollars and forty-eight cents in a `` Jew-store '' in a coal-town !