midnight
You talk about your editors and publishers , you literary swine . Barabbas was neither a robber nor a publisher , but a six-barred , barbed-wired , spike-topped Fence . What we really want is an Incorporated Society of Thieves , with some public-spirited old forger to run it for us on business lines . '' Raffles uttered these blasphemies under his breath , not , I am afraid , out of any respect for my one redeeming profession , but because we were taking a midnight airing on the roof , after a whole day of June in the little flat below . The stars shone overhead , the lights of London underneath , and between the lips of Raffles a cigarette of the old and only brand . I had sent in secret for a box of the best ; the boon had arrived that night ; and the foregoing speech was the first result . I could afford to ignore the insolent asides , however , where the apparent contention was so manifestly unsound .