midnight
The time vouchsafed for worthier deeds was brief , and he dreaded descending to posterity as the Rat Pope . Witty and genial , his sense of humour teased him with a full perception of the absurdity of his position . Peter and Pasquin concurred in forbidding him to desert his post ; and he derived but small comfort from the ingenuity of his flatterers , who compared him to St. Paul contending with beasts at Ephesus . It wanted three half-hours to midnight , as Alexander sat amid traps and ratsbane in his chamber in the Vatican , under the protection of two enormous cats and a British terrier . A silver bell stood ready to his hand , should the aid of the attendant chamberlains be requisite . The walls had been divested of their tapestries , and the floor gleamed with pounded glass . A tome of legendary lore lay open at the history of the Piper of Hamelin .