midnight
In truth , the country elsewhere swarmed with Billy 's lawful prey , and only Little Arcady seemed good . Billy also gloated over the portraits of well-known deputy sheriffs and other officers of the law printed in the same charming police paper . It seemed not too much to hope that his own likeness might one day grace that radiant page -- himself in a long , fashionable overcoat , carelessly flung back to reveal the badge , with its never closing eye , and underneath , `` William P. Durgin , the Dashing Young Detective , whose Coolness , Skill , and Daring have made his Name a Terror to Evil-Doers . '' Famished for adventure , thirsting for danger , yearning for the perilous midnight encounter , avid of secrecy and disguises , Billy had been forced to toil prosaically , barrenly , unprofitably , about the sinless corridors of the City Hotel . All he had been able to do thus far was to regard every newcomer to the town with a steely eye of distrust ; to watch each one furtively , to shadow him in his walks , and to believe during his sojourn that he might be `` Red Mike , alias James K. Brown , wanted for safe-breaking at Muskegon , Michigan ; reward , $ 1000 , '' or some like desperado . As such did he view them all -- from the ornately garbed young man who came among us purveying windmills to the portly , broadclothed , gray-whiskered and forbiddingly respectable colporteur of the American Bible Society . Some day would his keen gray eye penetrate the cunning disguise ; some day would he step quietly up to his man and say in low but deadly tones : `` Come with me , now .