midnight
said Godefroid . `` No , monsieur , I do n't ; but I 've got an old gentleman upstairs whose daughter seems to get her living by being ill , and he says that ; I only repeat it . The poor old man will be glad to know that monsieur likes quiet , for a noisy neighbor , he thinks , would kill his daughter . On the second floor we have two writers ; they do n't come in till midnight , and are off before eight in the morning . They say they are authors , but I do n't know where or when they write . '' While speaking , the portress was showing Godefroid up one of those horrible stairways of brick and wood so ill put together that it is hard to tell whether the wood is trying to get rid of the bricks or the bricks are trying to get away from the wood ; the gaps between them were partly filled up by what was dust in summer and mud in winter . The walls , of cracked and broken plaster , presented to the eye more inscriptions than the Academy of Belles-lettres has yet composed .