midnight
Reader , take example and strive to be so good a man _ . '' In his childhood Nicky-Nan had listened to many a legend of the Old Doctor , whose memory haunted every street and by-lane and even attained to something like apotheosis in the talk of the older inhabitants . They told what an eye he had , as a naturalist , for anything uncommon in the maunds ; how he taught them to be observant , alert for any strange fish , and to bring it home alive , if possible ; and how he was never so happy as when seated on a bollard near the Quay-head with a drawing-board on his knee , busy -- for he was a wonder with pencil and brush -- transferring to paper the outline and markings of a specimen and its perishable exquisite colours ; working rapidly while he listened to the account of its capture , and maybe pausing now and again to pencil a note on the margin of the portrait . They told , too , of his ways -- how for a whole month he came forth from his front door in a crouching posture , almost on all fours , so as not to disturb the work of a diadem spider that had chosen to build its web across the porch ; of his professional skill , that `` trust yourself to th ' Old Doctor , and he 'd see you came to a natral end of some sort , and in no haste , neither ; '' of his habit of dress , that -LRB- when not in martial uniform -RRB- he wore a black suit with knee-breeches , silk stockings , and silver shoe-buckles ; of his kindness of heart , that in the _ Notes of Periodic Phenomena _ , which he regularly kept , he always recorded a midnight gale towards the close of August , to account for the mysterious depletion of his apple-crop . But the Old Doctor had gone to his fathers long ago , and the old house , divided into two tenements -- with access by one porch and front passage -- had been occupied for twenty years past by Nicky-Nan and -LRB- for eight or nine -RRB- by the Penhaligon family . Nicky-Nan 's cantle overhung the river , and comprised a kitchen and scullery on the ground-floor , with a fairly large bedroom above it . The old Doctor 's own bedroom it had been , and was remarkable for an open fireplace with two large recessed cupboards let into a wall , which measured a good four feet in depth beyond the chimney-breast .