midnight
Mr. Sabsovich eyed the crowd sharply and thought awhile . `` Oh , '' he said , remembering all at once , `` it is Mr. Billings and his new wife . Go ahead , boys ! '' To me , trying vainly to sleep in the village hotel in the midnight hour with a tin-pan serenade to the newly married teacher going on under the window , there came in a lull , with the challenge of the loudest boy , `` Mr. Billings ! If you do n't come down , we will never go home , '' an appreciation of the Woodbine system of discipline which I had lacked till then . It was the Radetzky plan over again , of giving the boys a chance , to make them stay on the farm . If it is difficult to make the boy stay , it is sometimes even harder to make the father go .