midnight
` I entertain a sort of fancy for having _ him _ under my eye to-night , do you know ? ' Mr. Crisparkle , with a significant need complied ; and rejoining Neville , went away with him . They dined together , and parted at the yet unfinished and undeveloped railway station : Mr. Crisparkle to get home ; Neville to walk the streets , cross the bridges , make a wide round of the city in the friendly darkness , and tire himself out . It was midnight when he returned from his solitary expedition and climbed his staircase . The night was hot , and the windows of the staircase were all wide open . Coming to the top , it gave him a passing chill of surprise -LRB- there being no rooms but his up there -RRB- to find a stranger sitting on the window-sill , more after the manner of a venturesome glazier than an amateur ordinarily careful of his neck ; in fact , so much more outside the window than inside , as to suggest the thought that he must have come up by the water-spout instead of the stairs . The stranger said nothing until Neville put his key in his door ; then , seeming to make sure of his identity from the action , he spoke : ` I beg your pardon , ' he said , coming from the window with a frank and smiling air , and a prepossessing address ; ` the beans . '