twelve o'clock at night
But when Mr. Wynn walked forward next morning to summon Andy 's assistance for his luggage , he found that gentleman the focus of a knot of passengers , to whom he was imparting information in his own peculiar way . ` Throth an ' he talks like a book itself , ' was the admiring comment of a woman with a child on one arm , while she crammed her tins into her red box with the other . ` Every single ha ` porth is wood , I tell ye , barrin ' the grates , an ' ` tis n't grates they are at all , but shtoves . Sure I saw 'em at Pat M'Donagh 's as black as twelve o'clock at night , an ' no more a sign of a blaze out of 'em than there 's light from a blind man 's eye ; an ' ` tis n't turf nor coal they burns , but only wood agin . It 's I that wud sooner see the plentiful hearths of ould Ireland , where the turf fire cooks the vittles dacently ! Oh wirra ! why did we ever lave it ? '