midnight
My nerves were on edge , I knew , but I was n't looking for sympathy from my hired help . And when I swung the door shut behind me I am afraid it was a movement far from noiseless . I was glad to get out into the open , glad to get away from old Benson 's commiserative eyes , and have space about me , and cool air to breathe , and uncounted miles of pavement to weary my legs on . I noticed , as I turned , into Fifth Avenue , that the moving finger of light on the Metropolitan clock-dial pointed to an hour past midnight . So I veered about that delta of idleness , where the noontide turbulence of Broadway empties its driftwood into the quietness of the square , and pursued my way up the avenue . No one can claim to know New York who does not know its avenues in those mystical small hours that fall between the revolving street-sweeper and the robin-call of the first morning paper . Fifth Avenue , above all her sisters , then lies as though tranquillized by Death , as calm as the Coliseum under its Italian moonlight .