midnight
If his days were occupied , he had his nights to himself , and he lengthened them to suit himself . At first this caused his mother to fret a little ; but poor Aline had come into her present world from the conventional seclusion of King 's Bridge , and her only authority on questions of masculine license was her husband . He , being appealed to , had to admit that his own hours in youth had been late , and that he supposed the hours of a newer generation should properly be later still . Mr. Dolph forgot , perhaps , that while his early potations had been vinous , those of the later age were distinctly spirituous ; and that the early morning cocktail and the midnight brandy-and-soda were abominations unknown to his own well-bred youth . With port and sherry and good Bordeaux he had been familiar all his life ; a dash of _ liqueur _ after dinner did not trouble his digestion ; he found a bottle of champagne a pleasant appetizer and a gentle stimulant ; but whiskey and gin were to him the drinks of the vulgar ; and rum and brandy stood on his sideboard only to please fiercer tastes than his own . Perhaps , also , he was ignorant of the temptations that assail a young man in a great city , he who had grown up in such a little one that he had at one time known every one who was worth knowing in it . However this may have been , Eustace Dolph ruled for himself his going out and his coming in .