midnight
I was the first that could plod in the public eye with a load of genial respectability , and in a moment , like a schoolboy , strip off these lendings and spring headlong into the sea of liberty . But for me , in my impenetrable mantle , the safety was complete . Think of it -- I did not even exist ! Let me but escape into my laboratory door , give me but a second or two to mix and swallow the draught that I had always standing ready ; and whatever he had done , Edward Hyde would pass away like the stain of breath upon a mirror ; and there in his stead , quietly at home , trimming the midnight lamp in his study , a man who could afford to laugh at suspicion , would be Henry Jekyll . The pleasures which I made haste to seek in my disguise were , as I have said , undignified ; I would scarce use a harder term . But in the hands of Edward Hyde , they soon began to turn toward the monstrous . When I would come back from these excursions , I was often plunged into a kind of wonder at my vicarious depravity .