midnight
The vagrant was orally appraising his find , exhibiting the wisdom of one who has begged garments at back doors for the purposes of peddling them to second-hand shops . `` A moucher , '' observed the man at the fire . He continued aloud , evidently and sardonically exercising his vocabulary , plainly enjoying the amazement he provoked by his style of language . `` The spirit of a stray cat at midnight , the tastes of the prowling hyena ! The fat thief I saw running away into the woods ! When such as these began to take to the road , knight-errantry vanished from the face of the earth . The varlets borrowed the grand idea of care-free itinerancy and debased it , as waiters borrow a gentleman 's evening dress for their menial uniform , and drunken coachmen wear the same head-gear that a duke wears to a wedding !