midnight
I seemed to brood with lunar aloofness above its teeming plains , depressed by its enormous dimensions , confused by its incomprehensible tangle and clutter of criss-cross destinies . Its uncountable midnight voices seemed to merge into a vague sigh , so pensively remote , so inexpressibly tragic , that when I stood in my doorway and caught the sound of a harebrained young Romeo go whistling down past the Players ' Club his shrill re-piping of a Broadway roof-song seemed more than discordant ; it seemed desecration . The fool was happy , when the whole world was sitting with its fists clenched , awaiting some undefined doom . It was long past midnight , I remembered as I closed the door . For it must have been , an hour and more since I had looked out and seen the twelve ruby flashes from the topmost peak of the Metropolitan Tower signaling its dolorous message that another day had gone . I had watched those twelve winks with a sinking heart , finding something sardonic in their brisk levity , for I had been reminded by a telltale neurasthenic twitching of my right eyelid that some angling Satan known as Insomnia was once more tugging and jerking at my soul , as a fly-hook tugs and jerks at a trout 's mouth . I knew , even as I wandered drearily off from my house-door and paced as drearily round and round the iron-fence park enclosure , that I was destined for another sleepless night .