midnight
For out of Fifth Avenue , past where the double row of electric globes swung down the gentle slope of Murray Hill like a double pearl-strand down a woman 's breast , I caught sight of a figure turning quietly into the quietness of the square . It attracted and held my eye because it seemed the only movement in that place of utter stillness , where even the verdigris-tinted trees stood as motionless as though they had been cut from plates of copper . I watched the figure as it drew nearer and nearer . The lonely midnight seemed to convert the casual stroller into an emissary of mystery , into something compelling and momentous . I sat indolently back on my park bench , peering at him as he drifted in under the milk-white arc lamps whose scattered globes were so like a scurry of bubbles caught in the tree branches . I watched the stranger as closely as a traveler in mid-ocean watches the approach of a lonely steamer . I did not move as he stood for a moment beside the fountain .