midnight
The ghosts of these five murdered persons seemed to be on my track as I hurried down Revere Street to West Cedar . I fancied them hovering around the corner opposite the small drug-store , where a meagre apothecary was in the act of shutting up the fan-like jets of gas in his shop-window . `` No , Master Booth , '' I muttered in the imagined teeth of the tragedian , throwing an involuntary glance over my shoulder , `` you 'll not catch me assisting at any more of your Shakespearean revivals . I would rather eat a pair of Welsh rarebits or a segment of mince-pie at midnight than sit through the finest tragedy that was ever writ . '' As I said this I halted at the door of a house in Charles Place , and was fumbling for my latch-key , when a most absurd idea came into my head . I let the key slip back into my pocket , and strode down Charles Place into Cambridge Street , and across the long bridge , and then swiftly forward . I remember , vaguely , that I paused for a moment on the draw of the bridge , to look at the semi-circular fringe of lights duplicating itself in the smooth Charles in the rear of Beacon Street -- as lovely a bit of Venetian effect as you will get outside of Venice ; I remember meeting , farther on , near a stiff wooden church in Cambridgeport , a lumbering covered wagon , evidently from Brighton and bound for Quincy Market ; and still farther on , somewhere in the vicinity of Harvard Square and the college buildings , I recollect catching a glimpse of a policeman , who , probably observing something suspicious in my demeanor , discreetly walked off in an opposite direction .