midnight
`` Well , it 's no use to speculate . There 's the supper bell . I 'll decide in the morning whether I go off for a tramp or not . '' Clavering slept when he first went to bed , for he was healthily tired , but he awoke suddenly at midnight with body refreshed and mind abnormally clear . He knew that he would sleep no more that night , and he put on his trousers and coat over his pyjamas , thrust his feet into bedroom slippers and went out into the living-room . There he put a log on the fire and paced up and down , not unlike a tiger round its cage . He felt as if black bats were flying about his brain , each charged with a different portent of disaster .