midnight
The waiter marveled at the amount of black coffee the young man consumed and looked hurt when he did not touch the quail and lettuce . That night the little table in his room at Mrs. Gray 's was littered with scraps of pad paper , each covered with an incomprehensible maze of figures . After dinner he had gone to his own rooms , forgetting that he lived on Fifth Avenue . Until long after midnight he smoked and calculated and dreamed . For the first time the immensity of that million thrust itself upon him . If on that very day , October the first , he were to begin the task of spending it he would have but three hundred and fifty-seven days in which to accomplish the end . Taking the round sum of one million dollars as a basis , it was an easy matter to calculate his average daily disbursement .