midnight
`` Oh , yes , '' said Van Bibber , `` do the decent thing now , or I 'll -- '' The Object dropped the dime in the waiter 's hand , and Van Bibber , smiling and easy , made his way through the admiring crowd and out into the street . `` I suspect , '' said Mr. Van Bibber later in the day , when recounting his adventure to a fellow-clubman , `` that , after I left , fellow tried to get tip back from waiter , for I saw him come out of place very suddenly , you see , and without touching pavement till he lit on back of his head in gutter . He was most remarkable waiter . '' Young Van Bibber had never spent a Fourth of July in the city , as he had always understood it was given over to armies of small boys on that day , who sat on all the curbstones and set off fire-crackers , and that the thermometer always showed ninety degrees in the shade , and cannon boomed and bells rang from daybreak to midnight . He had refused all invitations to join any Fourth-of-July parties at the seashore or on the Sound or at Tuxedo , because he expected his people home from Europe , and had to be in New York to meet them . He was accordingly greatly annoyed when he received a telegram saying they would sail in a boat a week later . He finished his coffee at the club on the morning of the Fourth about ten o'clock , in absolute solitude , and with no one to expect and nothing to anticipate ; so he asked for a morning paper and looked up the amusements offered for the Fourth .