about noon
It took us four days to crawl up that coast and make Oban , for we seemed to be a floating general store for every hamlet in those parts . Gresson made himself very pleasant , as if he wanted to atone for nearly doing me in . We played some poker , and I read the little books I had got in Colonsay , and then rigged up a fishing-line , and caught saithe and lythe and an occasional big haddock . But I found the time pass slowly , and I was glad that about noon one day we came into a bay blocked with islands and saw a clean little town sitting on the hills and the smoke of a railway engine . I went ashore and purchased a better brand of hat in a tweed store . Then I made a bee-line for the post office , and asked for telegrams . One was given to me , and as I opened it I saw Gresson at my elbow .