midnight
He was eager to come , but the work required alertness and lightness of hand and foot rather than strength , and for this he would have been of no use . Besides , the two lads , keen as they were on their self-imposed tasks , were not unmindful of the fact that he had a wife and children to mourn him should the venture come to grief . All , however , seemed to go well . Max and Dale succeeded in effecting an entrance into the ground floor of the workshop after they had seen the watchman , by the glint of his lamp , make his midnight round . The two soldiers -- one at each end of the building -- saw nothing and heard nothing , of that they were assured . Without delay , therefore , for in a little over an hour the watchman would be back from his rounds upon the upper floors , they proceeded to put out of action the more valuable and more complicated machines in the building . It was necessary , of course , that they should be almost silent ; so their mode of procedure was to muffle up in an old blanket the most delicate and fragile parts of the machines before smashing them with a heavy hammer well swathed in flannel wrappings .