midnight
`` Boys , '' he said , `` I would n't ask too close as to what folks was out late at night : in this town it do n't do . '' When those two great brains finally left for the city on the five-thirty , it was hard to realize that behind each grand , impassible face a perfect vortex of clues was seething . But if the detectives were heroes , what was Pupkin ? Imagine him with his bandage on his head standing in front of the bank and talking of the midnight robbery with that peculiar false modesty that only heroes are entitled to use . I do n't know whether you have ever been a hero , but for sheer exhilaration there is nothing like it . And for Mr. Pupkin , who had gone through life thinking himself no good , to be suddenly exalted into the class of Napoleon Bonaparte and John Maynard and the Charge of the Light Brigade -- oh , it was wonderful . Because Pupkin was a brave man now and he knew it and acquired with it all the brave man 's modesty .