midnight
He even had praise , when praise made German virtue seem by that much greater ; and the inference from first to last was of German super-virtue . Some one in the crowd -- who bore a bullet-mark in proof he did not jest -- suggested to him that the British army was the biggest and fiercest in the world . So he told them of a German army , millions strong , that marched in league -- long columns -- an army that guarded by the prosperous hundred thousand factory chimneys that smoked until the central European sky was black . Long , long after midnight , in a final burst of imagination , he likened Germany to a bee -- hive from which a swarm must soon emerge for lack of room inside . And he proved , then , that he knew he had made an impression on them , for he dismissed them with an impudence that would have set them laughing at him when he first began to speak . `` Ye have my leave to go ! '' he said , as if he owned the place ; and they all went except one .