eleven o'clock
Another favorite pastime with him was to post himself in front of the reflector of the big searchlight up on the cabin , and make the most comical grimaces at his image on the polished reflector inside , sometimes uttering queer noises as if he were crying , and at other times chattering with the utmost anger at the phantom monkey , mixing these demonstrations up with wild dashes around behind the lamp to see if the mimicking animal were there . No matter what language the natives of each port might speak , they never failed to understand and appreciate these little sideshow comedies of Grandpa 's . And when it would become noised about among them that this particular monkey had traveled all the way from South America through the air with the `` bird-men , '' their awe for him was amusing to behold . With three hundred gallons of gasoline in her tanks , and her broken tail-elevator well repaired , the Sky-Bird was ready at eleven o'clock that evening to take off . Her crew were all tired out , but they knew they would soon be able to occupy the comfortable seats or hammocks in the cabin for another long stretch of over-sea travel , for it would be morning before they would reach Port Darwin , Australia , their next stop . It had been raining very hard in Singapore just before they arrived , and the field was quite wet , with many puddles in the low spots . Through one or two of these they had had to run in landing , and it seemed that in hopping off they would be forced to do so again .