five o'clock in
the morning
Well , if he set his mind on his torpedo he would surely get no sleep . It had cost him too many wakeful hours already . He lowered the curtain and closed his eyes . Few places in the well-ordered centres of civilization are so altogether dreary as Wickford Junction , shortly before five o'clock in the morning , when the usual handful of passengers alight from the Boston express . The sun has not yet climbed to the top of the seaward hills of Rhode Island , the station and environment rest in a damp semi-gloom , everything shut in , silent -- as though Nature herself had paused for a brief time before bursting into glad , effulgent day . The station is locked ; one grocery store in the distance presents a grim , boarded front to the sleeping street . No one is awake save the arriving passengers ; they are but half so , hungry and in the nature of things cross .