midnight
The wildest adventures were here united with narratives of real events and people , presenting human life in aspects the strangest and most varied . How different from my old clerkship with my father , with the interminable string of bastard and broken law Latin ! I believe that in all my after-life , fortunate as it has been in so many respects , I have never passed hours more happy than these were . In recompense for my secretarial functions , I was free of the middle watch ; so that , instead of turning into my berth at sundown to snatch some sleep before midnight , I could lounge about at will , -- sometimes dropping into the steerage to listen to some seaman 's `` yarn '' of storm and shipwreck , but far oftener , book in hand , taking a lesson in French from the old cook , for which I paid him in being `` aide-de-cuisine ; '' or , with more hardy industry , assisting our fat German mate to polish up his Regensburg pistols , by which I made some progress in that tongue of harsh and mysterious gutturals . Through all these occupations the thought never left me , -- what could be the object of Sir Dudley 's continued voyaging ? No feature of pleasure was certainly associated with it ; as little could it be attributed to the practice of smuggling , -- the very seas he had longest cruised in forbade that notion . It must be , thought I , that other reason to which he so darkly alluded on the day he called me to his cabin ; and what could that be ?