midnight
` I was , Sir , ' replied Mr. Pickwick -- ` I was observing what singular old places they are . ' ` _ You _ ! ' said the old man contemptuously . ` What do _ you _ know of the time when young men shut themselves up in those lonely rooms , and read and read , hour after hour , and night after night , till their reason wandered beneath their midnight studies ; till their mental powers were exhausted ; till morning 's light brought no freshness or health to them ; and they sank beneath the unnatural devotion of their youthful energies to their dry old books ? Coming down to a later time , and a very different day , what do _ you _ know of the gradual sinking beneath consumption , or the quick wasting of fever -- the grand results of `` life '' and dissipation -- which men have undergone in these same rooms ? How many vain pleaders for mercy , do you think , have turned away heart-sick from the lawyer 's office , to find a resting-place in the Thames , or a refuge in the jail ? They are no ordinary houses , those .