What time like the present?
"I'll start now," said he.
It was night.

Quite dark, save for the stars; the lights already disappearing in the fringe of mean houses whose outline was merged against the blackness of the town; the green and red and white disks along the railway line behind the dim mass of the gasworks; the occasional streak of conglomerate fireflies that was a tramcar; and the red, remorseless glow of here and there a furnace that never was extinct in the memory of man.

And, save for the far shriek of trains, the less remote and more frequent clanging of passing tramcars along the road edged with the skeleton cottages, and, startlingly near, the vain munching and dull footfall of the old horse, all was still.
Compared with home and Budge Street, it was the reposeful quiet of the tomb.

Barney Bill smoked for a time in silence, while Paul sat with clenched fists and a beating heart.

The simplicity of the high adventure dazed him.