midnight
Where 's some snap ? Your first paragraph reads like a recipe . Now put your soul into it , and you 've got less than fifteen minutes to do it in . '' St. George recalled that his friend Amory , as `` one hackneyed in the ways of life , '' had gravely lifted an eyebrow at him , and the new men had turned different colours at the thought of being addressed like that before the staff ; and St. George had recast the story and had received for his diligence a New Jersey assignment which had kept him until midnight . Haunting the homes of the club-women and the common council of that little Jersey town , the trim white-and-brass craft slipping down to the river 's mouth had not ceased to lure him . He had found himself estimating the value -- in money -- of the bric-à-brac of every house , and the self-importance of every alderman , and reflecting that these people , if they liked , might own yachts of white and brass ; yet they preferred to crouch among the bric-à-brac and to discourse to him of one another 's violations and interferences . By the time that he had reached home that dripping night and had put captions upon the backs of the unexpectant-looking photographs which were his trophies , he was in that state of comparative anarchy to be effected only by imaginative youth and a disagreeable task .