twelve o'clock
at night
If he was going on a vacation or anything like that , he 'd have said so this morning -- and he 'd have said good-bye to me . Anyway , he 'd have said good-bye to Miss Ellison ... '' Tom boarded with a private family in Culver Street , and after he reached home he sat up in his room for a while working with a kind of sullen resignation on the few registration badges which had still to have pins attached to them . It was while he was engaged in this heroic labor that a thought entered his mind which he put away from him , but which kept recurring again and again , and which ended by cheating him out of his night 's sleep . Why should Roscoe Bent be leaving home with two suitcases at twelve o'clock at night when he would have to register for the selective draft the next day ? After this rather puzzling question had entered his mind and refused to be ousted or explained away , other puzzling questions began to follow it . Why had the lights of the automobile been out ? Why had there been no lights in the house ?