one o’clock
`` Take a bat '' -LRB- which we call a stick in Sussex -RRB- `` and kill a rat if you die before sunrise . ` Twill save your people . '' ``` Aye , aye . Take a bat and kill a rat , '' he says ten times over , like a child , which moved ` em to ungovernable motions of that hysterical passion before mentioned , so that they laughed all , and at least warmed their chill bloods at that very hour -- one o'clock or a little after -- when the fires of life burn lowest . Truly there is a time for everything ; and the physician must work with it -- ahem ! -- or miss his cure . To be brief with you , I persuaded ` em , sick or sound , to have at the whole generation of rats throughout the village .