midnight
For there were not only taps to signify each new fire-district , -- one for the first , two for the second , three , four , five , six seven , eight , and nine , -- but there was also one lone toll at mid-day for the hungry mechanic , and nine at the evening hour when the tired workman called his children in from the street and turned to his couch , and the slave must show cause in a master 's handwriting why he or she was not under that master 's roof . And then there was one signal more . Fire is a dreadful thing , and all the alarm signals were for fire except this one . Yet the profoundest wish of every good man and tender women in New Orleans , when this pleasing novelty of electro-magnetic warnings was first published for the common edification , was that mid-day or midnight , midsummer or midwinter , let come what might of danger or loss or distress , that one particular signal might not sound . Twelve taps . Anything but that . Dr. Sevier and Richling had that wish together .