midnight
He 's seen the nicotine on my finger , '' said Slops , showing a finger under a sudden glow of his cigarette . A half-hour later when Dink crept up the stairs , homeward bound , he swelled with a new sensation . Yesterday was months away ; then he was a boy , now that he had smoked up a cold-air ventilator , with Bundy outwitted by the door , he had aged with a jump -- he must be at last a man . The next week he added to his stature by going to P. Lentz 's room for a midnight session of the national game , where , after a titanic struggle of three hours , he won the colossal sum of forty-eight cents . Having sunk to these depths he began to listen to the Sunday sermons with a thrill of personal delight -- there being not the slightest doubt that they were directly launched at him . Sometimes he wondered how the Doctor and The Roman could remain ignorant of the extent of his debauches , his transgressions were so daring and so complete . He stood shivering up the Trenton road , under the shadow of an icy trunk , of Sunday mornings , and met Blinky , the one-eyed purveyor of illicit cigarettes and the forbidden Sunday newspapers , which had to be wrapped around his body and smuggled under a sweater .