Midnight
`` Or , '' added Vincent , '' ` Tales for Children , and those who are not children . ' In this way the entire world would be able to take them up and form their own opinion of them . '' They all laughed , and Lothair , in comic anger , declared that in his next he would give full rein to his inspiration , regardless of consequences . Midnight having struck , the friends said good-night , and separated in the happiest of moods . * * * * * -LSB- Footnote 1 : The time of Napoleon 's Prussian operations is here meant . Hoffmann passed through this in early life . -- TRANS . -RSB-