midnight in late November
The horses are dilapidated , too ; and the drivers , whom you will generally find nodding on the box or sound asleep inside their cabs , harmonize with their rigs . These are the Nighthawkers of the Tenderloin . The name is not an assuring one , but it is suspected that it has been aptly given . One bleak midnight in late November a cab of this description waited in the lee of the elevated stairs . The cab itself was weather-beaten , scratched , and battered . The driver , who sat half inside and half outside the vehicle , with his feet on the sidewalk and his back propped against the seat-cushion , puffed a short pipe and watched with indolent but discriminating eye those who passed . He wore a coachman 's coat of faded green which seemed to have acquired a stain for every button it had lost .