midnight
Not having read Tom Sawyer , Richard evaded the question by asking , `` How did they do ? '' `` Oh , do n't you know ? They had the dead cat and they saw old Injun Joe come with the lantern and kill the man that was with Muff Potter . '' By the time Georgina had given the bare outline of the story in her dramatic way , Richard was quite sure that no power under heaven could entice him into a graveyard at midnight , though nothing could have induced him to admit this to Georgina . As far back as he could remember he had had an unreasoning dread of coffins . Even now , big as he was , big enough to wear '' ` leven-year-old suits , '' nothing could tempt him into a furniture shop for fear of seeing a coffin . One of his earliest recollections was of his nurse taking him into a little shop , at some village where they were spending the summer , and his cold terror when he found himself directly beside a long brown one , smelling of varnish , and with silver handles .