midnight
The doctor did not doubt it . So , grasping a huge , thick crab-stick , which he always carried at night , and which he had on the present occasion laid against the wall close by where he sat , the doctor stole on tiptoe towards the door , and taking up a position about a yard distant from it , raised his crab-stick aloft , and in this attitude slily awaited the entrance of the thief , whom he proposed to knock quietly down the moment he passed the door-way . Leaving the doctor in this gallant position for a few seconds , we step aside to inform the reader of a circumstance or two with which it is right he should be made acquainted . In the first place , he should be , as he now is , informed that the person at the door , and whom the doctor took to be a midnight robber , was no other than the doctor 's neighbour , Mr. Thomson himself , the lawful occupant of the house of which the former had taken possession . He had happened , like the doctor , to have been out late that night ; and , like the doctor , too , was several sheets in the wind . However , that is neither here nor there to our story . But it is of some consequence to it to add , inasmuch as it accounts for the non-appearance of any one to avert the impending catastrophe , that there was no one residing in Mr. Thomson 's house at the particular period of which we speak , but Mr. Thomson himself ; his wife , children , and servant , being at sea-bathing quarters .