midnight
We left Walter Harding and Tom Leslie , at the conclusion of a former chapter , coming out from the lodgings of the latter , on Bleecker Street near Elm , Leslie accompanying Harding out to a car on the Bowery before betaking himself to bed . `` Man proposes but God disposes , '' says the French proverb : There is `` a divinity that shapes our ends , '' even in the matters of going to bed and getting into railroad cars . It was somewhat longer than either had expected , before he reached the `` desired haven '' of home and a bed-chamber . It was past midnight when the two friends reached the Bowery , and the Third Avenue cars , on one of which Harding was going up , were running less frequently than early in the evening . There was not one of the green lights in sight down the Bowery from the corner of Bleecker Street , and the friends chatted a moment while waiting for one to make its appearance . Then they grew tired and restless , as people very soon do who are waiting for cars -LRB- or boiling tea-kettles , or marriage-days , or any thing of that kind -RRB- ; and they walked down to the corner of Prince to meet the tardy conveyance . There was a green light coming up , some blocks down the Bowery , but it seemed to the two sleepy fellows as if it would never reach the corner .