midnight
One hand sought the pavement to balance himself and aid in locomotion ; the other arm , the right , was twisted out from his body in the shape of an inverted V , the palm of his hand , with half curled , contorted fingers , almost touching his chin , as his head sagged at a stiff , set angle into his right shoulder . Hair straggled from the brim of a nondescript felt hat into his eyes , and curled , dirty and unshorn , around his ears and the nape of his neck . His face was covered with a stubble of four days ' growth , his body with rags -- a coat ; a shirt , the button long since gone at the neck ; and trousers gaping in wide rents at the knees , and torn at the ankles where they flapped around miss-mated socks and shoes . A hundred , two hundred people passed him in a block , the populace of the Bowery awakening into fullest life at midnight , men , women and children -- the dregs of the city 's scum -- the aristocracy of upper Fifth Avenue , of Riverside Drive , aping Bohemianism , seeking the lure of the Turkey Trot , transported from the Barbary Coast of San Francisco . Rich and poor , squalor and affluence , vice and near-vice surged by him , voicing their different interests with laughter and sobs and soft words and blasphemy , and , in a sort of mocking chorus , the composite effect rose and fell in pitiful , jangling discords . Few gave him heed -- and these few but a cursory , callous glance . The Flopper , on the inside of the sidewalk , in the shadow of the buildings , gave as little as he got , though his eyes were fastened sharply , now ahead , now , screwing around his body to look behind him , on the faces of the pedestrians as they passed ; or , rather , he appeared to look through and beyond those in his immediate vicinity to the ones that followed in his rear from further down the street , or approached him from the next corner .