midnight
Never , Benson , never ! You will make yourself comfortable here with this gallant gentleman of the black-jack , and keep this handsome Colt of his quite close about you while you 're doing it . For I 'm going to take this piece of porcelain back where it belongs , even though I have to face a dozen lap-dogs and frighten every housemaid of Twelfth Street into hysterics . '' Nobody , I have more than once contended , is altogether sane after midnight . This belief came back to me as I stood before that gloomy-fronted Fifth Avenue house , in that ebb-tide hour of the night when even Broadway is empty , wondering what lay behind the brownstone mask , asking myself what dangers lurked about that inner gloom , speculating as to what sleepers stirred and what eyes , even as I stood there , might be alert and watching . As Benson had suggested , I might have waited decorously until daylight , or I might have quietly ascended the wide stone steps and continued to ring the electric push-bell until a sleepy servant answered it . But that , after all , seemed absurdly tame and commonplace .