midnight
`` They held their peace , and drank with great apparent experience . I did not dispute my companion 's assertion , that they had rendered noble service during many a campaign , and were capable of rendering much more ; still , my opinion of politicians in general was in no way heightened by their appearance . Being disappointed in their ends and aims at the last election , they now stood much in need of a trifle , with which to pay Bishop Hughes for praying a recently-deceased brother through purgatory , a service he never performed without feeling the money safe in his palm . All at once they set up a howl like midnight wolves , which so alarmed me that I hastened into the street , where my companion soon joined me , saying it was a way they had of expressing a joke . Not being accustomed to the ways of working politicians of the New York school , I made my way as fast as possible into Broadway , when , to my surprise , I discovered that my watch had parted company with me . My companion was equally surprised , offered me any number of regrets , and said he would go back and have every political vagabond arrested and locked up in the Tombs , where , if his acquaintance with the judge was not of too intimate a nature , the thief would be detected and punished in the morning . `` Pausing for a moment , a second thought , he said , satisfied him that to seek redress by so bold a course would not be good policy .