midnight
One of the most excellent things in all the world , and very few people get too much of it nowadays . As for Dabney Kinzer , he had done his sleeping as regularly and faithfully as even his eating , up to the very night after Ham Morris came home to find the old barn afire . There had been a few , a very few , exceptions . There were the nights when he was expecting to go duck-shooting before daylight , and waked up at midnight with a strong conviction that he was late about starting . There were , perhaps , a dozen of `` eeling '' expeditions , that had kept him out late enough for a full basket and a proper scolding . There , too , was the night when he had stood so steadily by the tiller of `` The Swallow , '' while she danced , through the dark , across the rough billows of the Atlantic . But , on the whole , Dab Kinzer had been a good sleeper all his life till then .