midnight
He slipped it out of its frame and tossed it on top of the blazing letters . Having performed this rite , he got into his dress-clothes and went to a small French restaurant to dine . He had meant to go on board the steamer immediately after dinner ; but a sudden vision of introspective hours in a silent cabin made him call for the evening paper and run his eye over the list of theatres . It would be as easy to go on board at midnight as now . He selected a new vaudeville and listened to it with surprising freshness of interest ; but toward eleven o'clock he again began to dread the approaching necessity of going down to the steamer . There was something peculiarly unnerving in the idea of spending the rest of the night in a stifling cabin jammed against the side of a wharf . He left the theatre and strolled across to the Fifth Avenue .