midnight
But here I anticipate a little , for I was not a Finch , and could not be , according to the sacred laws of the society , until I came of age . In my confidence in my own resources , I would willingly have taken Herbert 's expenses on myself ; but Herbert was proud , and I could make no such proposal to him . So he got into difficulties in every direction , and continued to look about him . When we gradually fell into keeping late hours and late company , I noticed that he looked about him with a desponding eye at breakfast-time ; that he began to look about him more hopefully about mid-day ; that he drooped when he came into dinner ; that he seemed to descry Capital in the distance , rather clearly , after dinner ; that he all but realized Capital towards midnight ; and that at about two o'clock in the morning , he became so deeply despondent again as to talk of buying a rifle and going to America , with a general purpose of compelling buffaloes to make his fortune . I was usually at Hammersmith about half the week , and when I was at Hammersmith I haunted Richmond , whereof separately by and by . Herbert would often come to Hammersmith when I was there , and I think at those seasons his father would occasionally have some passing perception that the opening he was looking for , had not appeared yet . But in the general tumbling up of the family , his tumbling out in life somewhere , was a thing to transact itself somehow .