twelve o'clock at night
`` And go thirty miles out of our way ? '' exclaimed my companion , sneeringly . `` No , sir . I have no desire to cross a sandy plain where the sun heats the earth so hot that a mosquito gets its wings singed if it alights before twelve o'clock at night . '' `` The plain must be a paradise if insects do n't exist there . Let us go by that route , '' I replied . `` I did n't say that flies and mosquitoes were not there .