twelve o’clock
His wife was a drunkard . This was an awful trial to him . The worst consequence was that his boy knew that his mother got drunk . The neighbours kindly enough volunteered to look after the little man when he was not at school , and they waylaid him and gave him dinner when his mother was intoxicated ; but frequently he was the first when he returned to find out that there was nothing for him to eat , and many a time he got up at night as late as twelve o'clock , crawled downstairs , and went off to his father to tell him that `` she was very bad , and he could not go to sleep . '' The father , then , had to keep his son in the Strand till it was time to close , take him back , and manage in the best way he could . Over and over again was he obliged to sit by this wretched woman 's bedside till breakfast time , and then had to go to work as usual . Let anybody who has seen a case of this kind say whether the State ought not to provide for the relief of such men as John , and whether he ought not to have been able to send his wife away to some institution where she might have been tended and restrained from destroying , not merely herself , but her husband and her child .