midnight before
You 'll be lucky to get Mr. Badger to take back your oil stock on any terms . Leave the certificate with me , '' laughed Mr. Tutt , rubbing his long thin hands together almost gleefully . `` And now as it is getting rather late perhaps you will do me the honor of letting me escort you home . '' It was midnight before Mr. Tutt went to bed . In the first place he had felt himself so neglectful of Mrs. Effingham that after he had taken her home he had sat there a long time talking over the old lady 's affairs and making the acquaintance of the phthisical Jessie , who turned out to be a wistful little creature with great liquid eyes and a delicate transparent skin that foretold only too clearly what was to be her future . There was only one place for her , Mr. Tutt told himself -- Arizona ; and by the grace of God she should go there , Badger or no Badger ! As the old lawyer walked slowly home with his hands clasped behind his back he pondered upon the seeming mockery and injustice of the law that forced a lonely , half-demented old fellow with the fixed delusion that he was a financier behind prison bars and left free the sharp slick crook who had no bowels or mercies and would snatch away the widow 's mite and leave her and her consumptive daughter to die in the poorhouse .