midnight
House-furniture is bought and sold , music-lessons are given , children are born and christened , ladies are confined and churched -- time , in other words , passes -- and yet Captain Walker still remains in prison ! Does it not seem strange that he should still languish there between palisaded walls near Fleet Market , and that he should not be restored to that active and fashionable world of which he was an ornament ? The fact is , the Captain had been before the court for the examination of his debts ; and the Commissioner , with a cruelty quite shameful towards a fallen man , had qualified his ways of getting money in most severe language , and had sent him back to prison again for the space of nine calendar months , an indefinite period , and until his accounts could be made up . This delay Walker bore like a philosopher , and , far from repining , was still the gayest fellow of the tennis-court , and the soul of the midnight carouse . There is no use in raking up old stories , and hunting through files of dead newspapers , to know what were the specific acts which made the Commissioner so angry with Captain Walker . Many a rogue has come before the Court , and passed through it since then : and I would lay a wager that Howard Walker was not a bit worse than his neighbours . But as he was not a lord , and as he had no friends on coming out of prison , and had settled no money on his wife , and had , as it must be confessed , an exceedingly bad character , it is not likely that the latter would be forgiven him when once more free in the world .