midnight
That night he cried as he had never cried before . Not violently ; he was too weak for that , but with a sound like the tongue-tied whimper of some tiny animal . Swinny had slept through worse noise many a night . Now he cried from midnight to cock-crow ; and on Tuesday morning Swinny was crying too . He had had one of his `` little attacks , '' after which he began to show signs of rapid wasting . He had got something which Mrs. Nevill Tyson had never heard of -- `` marasmus , '' the doctor called it . She hoped it was nothing very bad .