midnight
By the time his voice had stopped squeaking he was a good printer , and what with using the front office for a study at night , and the New York papers and the magazines for textbooks , he had acquired a good working education . Whereupon he fell in love with two divinities at once -- the blonde one working in the Racket Store , on Main Street , and the other , a new linotype that we installed the year before McKinley 's first election . His heart was sadly torn between them . He never went to bed under midnight after calling on either of them , and , having the Celt 's natural aptitude to get at the soul of either women or intricate mechanism , in a year he was engaged to both ; but naturally enough a brain fever overtook him , and he lay on a cot at the Sisters ' Hospital and jabbered strange things . Among other things the priest who sat beside him one day heard Latin verse ; whereat the father addressed David in the language of the Church and received reply in kind . And they talked solemnly about matters theological for five minutes , David 's voice changing to the drone of the liturgist 's and his face flushing with uncaged joy . In an hour there were three priests with the boy , and he spoke in Latin to them without faltering .