midnight
-LSB- Footnote 9 : Col. William D. Kennedy , of the Tammany Regiment . -RSB- There was nothing very cordial in the tone , and no indication that the Superintendent considered it peculiarly his place to listen to all the persons who came to him upon business ; but perhaps this comparative _ brusquerie _ is necessary , in the carrying on of any important department , to discourage bores and send idle people the sooner about their business . It does not add to popularity , however , and may add materially to the opposite . Under such circumstances , it did not need a very long period of time for Tom Leslie , with the occasional assistance of Harding , whose memory was much more accurate if not more retentive -- to convey to the Superintendent the main facts of their midnight adventure , with the impression that adventure had made , of some disloyal movements going on in the City , and probably with extended ramifications elsewhere . Except to say that one of the women seen on that evening had before fallen under his notice in Europe . Leslie did not allude to the episode of the `` red woman , '' nor did he enter into the particulars of his previous meetings with Dexter Ralston , though he asserted his knowledge of him as a Virginian of peculiar influence and a very ambiguous position . The Superintendent showed few signs of interest in the narration , though his sharp eye occasionally glanced at the face of the principal narrator , and though he two or three times made motions with the pencil lying before him , which might have been merely listless occupation of his fingers and might have been something very different .