midnight
`` Which is Bickers ? '' `` The man with the black beard -- last but one on the other side . '' Railsford gave a furtive look down the table , and encountered the eyes of Mr Bickers fixed discontentedly on him . A lightning flash at midnight will often reveal minute details of a scene or landscape which in the ordinary glare of day might pass unnoticed by the observer . So it was in this sudden chance encounter of glances . It lasted not a moment , but it was a declaration of war to the knife on one side , hurled back defiantly on the other . `` Not a bad fellow if you do n't stroke him the wrong way , '' said Grover .