midnight
Sick ? '' But he went with them to the bar and to the board . Watson was in the pilot-house , though not at the wheel . So early of a Sabbath afternoon , in the middle of his partner 's watch , he might well have been in his texas stateroom asleep , but to a Mississippi River pilot Sunday afternoon , or any afternoon , or forenoon , or midnight , or dusk or dawn , on watch or off , the one thing in this world was the river . Else what sort of a pilot would he be , when the whole lore of its thousands of miles of navigation was without chart , light , or beacon , a thing kept only in pilots ' memories , a lamp in a temple ? Glancing down forward of the bell , he was reminded of a certain young lady the sight of whom on the previous evening just after his brush with Hayle 's twins , standing there before Hugh Courteney with her arms akimbo , had led him to say : `` If that 's to be the game I 'm in it . '' He wished she were there now , or up here again in the pilot-house asking her countless questions about this endlessly interesting world 's highway .