midnight
It is marvellous in a small constituency of 300 average souls , what a queer moral result one of these business-like and narrow investigations which precede an election will furnish . How you find them rated and classified -- what odd notes you make to them in the margin ; and after the trenchant and rapid vivisection , what sinister scars and seams remain , and how gaunt and repulsive old acquaintances stand up from it . The Town Clerk knew the constituency of Dollington at his fingers ' ends ; and Stanley Lake quietly enjoyed , as certain minds will , the nefarious and shabby metamorphosis which every now and then some familiar and respectable burgess underwent , in the spell of half-a-dozen dry sentences whispered in his ear ; and all this minute information is trustworthy and quite without malice . I went to my bed-room , and secured the door , lest Uncle Lorne , or Julius , should make me another midnight visit . So that mystery was cleared up . Neither ghost nor spectral illusion , but flesh and blood -- though in my mind there has always been a horror of a madman akin to the ghostly or demoniac . I do not know how late Tom Wealdon and Stanley Lake sat up over their lists ; but I dare say they were in no hurry to leave them , for a dissolution was just then expected , and no time was to be lost .