midnight
asked Henry , realising that this was the Jacobite method . `` Not just yet , '' said the little man , reassuringly . So Henry was enrolled . * * * * * And so it went on till past midnight , when Henry at last escaped , to talk it all over with the stars . The evening had naturally puzzled him , as a man will always be puzzled who has developed under the influence of the main tendencies of his generation , and who finds himself suddenly in a backwater of fanciful reaction . Henry , in his simple way , was a thinker and a radical , and he had nourished himself on the great main-road masters of English literature . He had followed the lead of modern philosophers and scientists , and had arrived at a mystical agnosticism , -- the first step of which was to banish the dogmas of the church as old wives ' tales .