eleven at night
He used to say that an ill-dressed woman would spoil the finest landscape . For such a man , with an artistic feeling so sensitive , the White Sulphur Springs is a natural goal . And he and his friend hastened thither with as much speed as the Virginia railways , whose time-tables are carefully adjusted to miss all connections , permit . `` What do you think of a place , '' he wrote Miss Lamont -- the girl read me a portion of his lively letter that summer at Saratoga -- `` into which you come by a belated train at half-past eleven at night , find friends waiting up for you in evening costume , are taken to a champagne supper at twelve , get to your quarters at one , and have your baggage delivered to you at two o'clock in the morning ? '' The friends were lodged in `` Paradise Row '' -- a whimsical name given to one of the quarters assigned to single gentlemen . Put into these single-room barracks , which were neat but exceedingly primitive in their accommodations , by hilarious negro attendants who appeared to regard life as one prolonged lark , and who avowed that there was no time of day or night when a mint-julep or any other necessary of life would not be forthcoming at a moment 's warning , the beginning of their sojourn at `` The White '' took on an air of adventure , and the two strangers had the impression of having dropped into a garrison somewhere on the frontier . But when King stepped out upon the gallery , in the fresh summer morning , the scene that met his eyes was one of such peaceful dignity , and so different from any in his experience , that he was aware that he had come upon an original development of watering-place life .