midnight
`` That evening his father and a number of other men were gathered together in the town hall of Lucerne to talk over community affairs , when Peter suddenly burst into the room , his eyes as big as saucers . `` The men gathered about him , thinking he must have some tremendous piece of news , but Peter spoke never a word to them . Instead , he marched up to the great porcelain stove that stood in the room . '' ' O Stove , ' said Peter , ` I have just heard terrible things which I have promised not to tell to a living soul , but you , O Stove , have no soul , so to you I will say that the Austrians are now in the tunnel underneath the walls and that at midnight they will break in and sack the town . ' `` At first the men thought Peter had gone crazy , but when he had finished telling the stove all he had seen and heard , they flew to alarm the town and get their weapons . `` At midnight , when the Austrians came up through the hole in the stable floor , they were received by a little army of men of Lucerne , and in the battle that followed they were completely whipped and driven from the town forever . And it was Peter who saved the city .