midnight
How dare he -- with no hope of any profit , not a hero , not a leader of a forlorn hope nor a martyr to God , but a mere filthy , malignant rat -- how dare he , I ask myself , be so defiant , so death-inviting ? The spectacle of him makes me doubt all the schools of the metaphysicians and the realists . No philosophy has a leg to stand on that does not account for Mulligan Jacobs . And all the midnight oil of philosophy I have burned does not enable me to account for Mulligan Jacobs ... unless he be insane . And then I do n't know . Was there ever such a freight of human souls on the sea as these humans with whom I am herded on the _ Elsinore _ ? * * * * * And now , working in my rooms , white-leading and turpentining , is another one of them .