midnight
`` It is n't ; but it will happen , nevertheless , '' he declared with conviction . He had already begun to spend his days and nights in apprehension of this , and as the weeks went on and nothing happened his apprehension grew rather than diminished . In the meantime , the Consolidated Illuminating and Power Company went pompously on . The great combine was formed , the fifty million dollars ' worth of stock was opened for subscription , and the company gave a vastly expensive banquet in the convention hall of the Hotel Spender , at which a thousand of the city 's foremost men were entertained , and where the cleverest after-dinner speakers to be obtained talked in relays until long after midnight . Those who came to eat the rich food and drink the rare wine and lend their countenances to the stupendous local enterprise , being shrewd business graduates who had cut their eye-teeth in their cradles , smiled and went home without any thought of investing ; but the hard-working , economical chaps of the offices and shops , men who felt elated if , after five years of slavery , they could show ten hundred dollars of savings , glanced in awe over this magnificent list of names in the next day 's papers . If the stock of the Consolidated Illuminating and Power Company was considered a good investment by these generals and captains and lieutenants of finance , who , of course , attended this Arabian Nights banquet as investors , it must certainly be a good investment for the corporals and privates . Immediately vivid results were shown .