midnight
I think he was not so far out of the way , who said , that , next to the Newgate Calendar , the Biography of Authors is the most sickening chapter in the history of man . '' `` It is indeed enough to make one 's heart ache ! '' interrupted Flemming . `` Only think of Johnson and Savage , rambling about the streets of London at midnight , without a place to sleep in ; Otway starved to death ; Cowley mad , and howling like a dog , through the aisles of Chichester Cathedral , at the sound of church music ; and Goldsmith , strutting up Fleet Street in his peach-blossom coat , to knock a bookseller over the pate with one of his own volumes ; and then , in his poverty , about to marry his landlady in Green Arbour Court . '' `` A life of sorrow and privation , a hard life , indeed , do these poor devil authors have of it , '' replied the Baron ; `` and then at last must get them to the work-house , or creep away into some hospital to die . '' `` After all , '' said Flemming with a sigh , `` poverty is not a vice . '' `` But something worse , '' interrupted the Baron ; `` as Dufresny said , when he married his laundress , because he could not pay her bill .