midnight
`` We 're going to do all sorts of nice things for Davy Hopworth , who is a very nice , bright youngster , but , just because he 's a Hopworth , the other boys get punished for playing with him and that makes both Peter Hyde and me indignant . `` Is n't the world funny , Claire , how the sins of the fathers and the grandfathers are visited upon the children -- at least in places like this ? Of course my beloved Finnegans are too busy just keeping the present generation going , to think much about the past , and the world they live in rushes too fast to stop to think that Timmy Finnegan , maybe 's , going to rob a bank because his great-great-grandfather , over in County Cork , ran off with a pig . `` It is too late in the evening to philosophize , and I must n't let my wick burn too low or Aunt Sabrina will know I 'm using the midnight oil . Do n't be cross , dear Claire , if you do n't hear from me every day ; although you might suppose that up here I 'd have a great deal of leisure time , somehow each day seems to bring something unexpected . And as I said on page 2 of this voluminous letter , I am growing fond of Happy House and there is a sort of fascination about everything here . Dear Anne , with her noble dreams , never longed to bring about the reforms that I do !