twelve o'clock
A second and a third time his debts were paid by myself and Pierpoint . But the same habits of intemperance and dissolute pleasure which led him into these debts , finally ruined his constitution ; and he died , though otherwise of a fine generous manly nature , a martyr to dissipation at the early age of twenty-nine . With respect to his prison confinement , it was so frequently recurring in his life , and was alleviated by so many indulgences , that he scarcely viewed it as a hardship : having once been an officer of the prison , and having thus formed connections with the whole official establishment , and done services to many of them , and being of so convivial a turn , he was , even as a prisoner , treated with distinction , and considered as a privileged son of the house . -RSB- It was just striking twelve o'clock as we entered the lane where the carriage was drawn up . Rain , about the profoundest I had ever witnessed , was falling . Though near to midsummer , the night had been unusually dark to begin with , and from the increasing rain had become much more so . We could see nothing ; and at first we feared that some mistake had occurred as to the station of the carriage -- in which case we might have sought for it vainly through the intricate labyrinth of the streets in that quarter .