midnight
And so an agreement was duly drawn up whereby Mr. Margari , in consideration of a yearly salary of 300 florins to be punctually sent to him at the beginning of every quarter , undertook in his capacity of secretary to Baron Hátszegi , to keep his Honour Demetrius Lapussa informed of all that he saw and heard at the residence of that gentleman , Henrietta 's future husband , and this obligation of maintaining Margari was to be transferred on the death of Mr. Demetrius to his son John . And no doubt Mr. Demetrius knew very well what he was about . This document signed and sealed , Mr. Margari , with the greatest alacrity , produced the Latin exercises in question , first of all , however , respectfully kissing the hand of his patron . It took till midnight to read and translate all these documents one by one . Mr. Demetrius was very well satisfied with the result , that is to say so far as concerned the fidelity of the translation , -- with the tenor of the original text he had not the slightest reason to be pleased . When , shortly after midnight , these revelations were concluded , Mr. Demetrius commanded Margari to go up into his room and have a complete translation of all this Latin rigmarole written down in honest Hungarian by the morning and to encourage him in his task he gave him two guldens and an order on the butler for as much punch as he could drink . By the morning all the punch was drunk , but the translation also was finished , to the tune of bacchanalian songs which Margari kept up with great spirit all night long .