midnight before
When I went to bed on Wednesday night , I lay awake thinking deeply about what I was to do on the morrow . Daphne had proved inexorable . My brain , usually so fertile , had become barren , and for my three days ' contemplation of the subject I had absolutely nothing to show . It was past midnight before I fell into a fitful slumber , only to be aroused three hours and a half later by the sudden burst of iniquity with which two or more cats saw fit to shake the silence of the rose-garden . As I threw out the boot-jack , I noticed the dawn . And as further sleep seemed out of the question , I decided to dress and go out into the woods . When I slipped out of Knight 's Bottom into the sunlit road to find myself face to face with a Punch and Judy show , I was not far from being momentarily disconcerted .