midnight
Did he try to learn a useful trade , thousands of adepts were not only ready to underbid him , but to knock him on the head for an interloper . Even the thieves , to whom he gravitated , were jealous of his accession , because there were too many competitors already in their department . Through his career of penury , of honest and dishonest callings , of ` scapes and captures , imprisonments and other punishments , a year 's reading of Metropolitan Police Reports would furnish the exact counterpart . ***** I do n't know how many years after his flight from Pall Mall , one dim midnight , I , returning from Richmond , lounged over Vauxhall Bridge , listening to the low lapping of the current beneath the arches -- looking above to the stars and along the dark polished surface that reflected a thousand lights in its undulations , -- feeling the awfulness of the dense , suppressed life that was wrapt within the gloom and calm of the hour . I suddenly saw a shadow , a human shadow , that at the sound of my footstep quickly crossed my dreamy vision -- quickly , noiselessly came and went before my eyes until it stood up high and outlined against the strangely-mingled haze . It looked like the ghost of a slight-formed man , hatless and coatless , and for a moment I saw at its upper extremity the dull flash as of a human face in the gloom , before the shadow leaped out far into the night . Splash !