midnight
`` You have been fighting , Johnson , I think , '' said the Judge , with suppressed dislike . `` I 've been knocked down by a nigger , '' said the man , with a glare of ferocity , removing his hand from the wounded eye , as if it inflamed his recollection of the blow to see the drops of blood drip from his beard to the porch . `` This town is too nice to abide a dealer in the constitutional article , and so they set on me , when I was a little jingle-brained with lush , an ' while the nigger klemmed me in the peep , a little white villain with a steeple bonnet hit me in the bread-bag with a stone . I 've come yer , Judge , to lie up in the kitchen , an ' sleep warm over Sunday , for the cops threaten to take me , if they catch me before midnight . '' `` I suppose you know , Johnson , that I am a magistrate , and the proper harborage I give to breakers of the peace is the jail . '' `` I 'm not afraid of that limbo , Judge Custis , when I come to you . Old Patty Cannon has done you many a good turn with Joe Johnson 's gang about election times in the upper destreeks of Somerset .