midnight
And Judkin , whose clothes had been to him once more than a religion , scarcely less sacred than a family quarrel , would carry those parcels back to his villa and to the wife who awaited him and them -- a wife who may , for all we know to the contrary , have had a figure once , and perhaps has yet a heart of gold -- of nine-carat gold , let us say at the least -- but assuredly a soul of tape . And he that has fetched and carried will explain how it has fared with him in his dealings , and if he has brought the wrong sort of sugar or thread he will wheedle away the displeasure from that leaden face as a pastrycook girl will drive bluebottles off a stale bun . And that man has known what it was to coax the fret of a thoroughbred , to soothe its toss and sweat as it danced beneath him in the glee and chafe of its pulses and the glory of its thews . He has been in the raw places of the earth , where the desert beasts have whimpered their unthinkable psalmody , and their eyes have shone back the reflex of the midnight stars -- and he can immerse himself in the tending of an incubator . It is horrible and wrong , and yet when I have met him in the lanes his face has worn a look of tedious cheerfulness that might pass for happiness . Has Judkin of the Parcels found something in the lees of life that I have missed in going to and fro over many waters ? Is there more wisdom in his perverseness than in the madness of the wise ?