midnight
We passed through the church-yard , and it seemed as if the people had been buried in oil . The High Street stunk of oil ; we wondered how people could live in it . And we walked miles upon miles out Birmingham way ; but it was no use , the country was steeped in oil . At the end of that trip we met together at midnight in a lonely field , under a blasted oak , and took an awful oath -LRB- we had been swearing for a whole week about the thing in an ordinary , middle-class way , but this was a swell affair -RRB- -- an awful oath never to take paraffine oil with us in a boat again-except , of course , in case of sickness . Therefore , in the present instance , we confined ourselves to methylated spirit . Even that is bad enough . You get methylated pie and methylated cake .