midnight
`` My fren , '' says Villiam , as though he and I were entirely alone together on a desert island , `` when old Binks gave up the soap-boiling business last fall , and came to '' -- `` Did you wish to pass , sir ? '' said the beatitude in white ; and we soon found ourselves beside the banquet board , where all went merry as a fire-bell . Then did we gorge ourselves , my boy , like the very First Families under similar circumstances ; revelling in such salads as were known to the ancients just before the breaking out of the Asiatic cholera , and paying general attention to a bill of fare which was heartily despised by the old aristocracy of the capital who had received no invitations . It was past midnight when we retreated to a double-bedded room at Willard 's , and as Captain Villiam Brown took his goblet of final soda , he gracefully tipped my glass , and says he : `` I propose a sentimink . '' Villiam raised the Falernian nectar aloft , gazed solemnly at me , and says he : `` Human Instink ! '' Let us believe , my boy , that the instincts of those who come to the higher social surface in this , our trying time of war , are , by their own purity from anything actually malignant , sure indications that the nation 's heart is good to the very bottom . Let us believe that the pride of Ascent , vain-glorious as it may seem , is nobler in raising the public laugh than is the tyrannical pride of Descent , which too often forces the public tear .