midnight
They packed him into a cab with utmost reverence , for was he not the author of `` As it was in the Beginning , '' and a person in whose company it was an honour to go abroad ? From all I gathered later , he had taken less interest in the performance before him than in their conversations , and they protested with emphasis that he was `` as good a man as they make ; knew what a man was driving at almost before he said it ; and yet he 's so damned simple about things any man knows . '' That was one of many comments . At midnight they returned , announcing that they were `` highly respectable gondoliers , '' and that oysters and stout were what they chiefly needed . The eminent novelist was still with them , and I think he was calling them by their shorter names . I am certain that he said he had been moving in worlds not realised , and that they had shown him the Empire in a new light . Still sore at recent neglect , I answered shortly , `` Thank Heaven we have within the land ten thousand as good as they , '' and when he departed , asked him what he thought of things generally .