midnight
`` Hello , boys , '' said a deep gruff voice . `` J. K. ! '' It was . Joe Kramer arriving in Paris at midnight on a punctured tire , and cursing the cobblestone pavements over which he had hunted us out . A hot supper , a bottle of wine , a genial beam on all three of us , and Joe told his story . After leaving college , from New York he had gone to Kansas City , and by the `` livest paper '' there he had been sent abroad with a bike to do a series of `` Sunday specials . '' He had come over steerage and written an exposé of his passage .