midnight
They represented to the life merry , devil-may-care vagabonds , and so well did they act their parts that one would have supposed they had just been picked up on the miry highway outside . They deemed it , of course , strictly within their privileges to get drunk with all due speed , -- an endeavor in which they admirably succeeded . From that hour on they became an unmitigated nuisance , not even atoned for by some humor or merry pranks . After midnight they were always seen in a bunch , steadying each other as they lurched along . Lieutenant von Meckelburg , during the earlier part of the evening , stuck resolutely and almost silently to his assigned duty , it being that of an organ-grinder . He had picked up somewhere a villainous specimen of this instrument of torture , and with it had retired into a corner , wearing the ragged and faded clothes of an impecunious veteran of the wars , with his visorless , crumpled cap pulled over his eyes , and with a face which for unadulterated melancholy could not be duplicated . Hardly any one took notice of him , and his physiognomy grew sadder and sadder .