midnight
It was the cotton waste , Mr. Joe , and the cigarettes ... '' Joe put his arm about the rough man . `` Never mind , Johnny ... Go home to the kiddies ... '' There was so little he could do . He went to a few homes he knew , he went to the hospital to ask after the injured , he went to the morgue . At midnight the fire , like an evil thing , drew him back , and he encountered only a steamy blackness lit by the search-light of the engine . There was still the insistent throbbing . And then he thought of his mother and her fears , and sped swiftly up the street , over deserted Lexington Avenue , and up the lamp-lit block . Already newsboys were hoarsely shouting in the night , as they waved their papers -- a cry of the underworld palpitating through the hushed city : `` Wuxtra !