midnight
; and a thousand sly jokes , such as it is usual to address to a bridegroom . In fact , this hunchback courted the dyer 's wife , who from her nature , caring little for badly built people , laughed to scorn the request of the mechanician , and joked him about the springs , engines , and spools of which his shop was full . However , this great love of the hunchback was rebuffed by nothing , and became so irksome to the dyer 's wife that she resolved to cure it by a thousand practical jokes . One evening , after the sempiternal pursuit , she told her lover to come to the back door and towards midnight she would open everything to him . Now note , this was on a winter 's night ; the Rue St. Montfumier is close to the Loire , and in this corner there continually blow in winter , winds sharp as a hundred needle-points . The good hunchback , well muffled up in his mantle , failed not to come , and trotted up and down to keep himself warm while waiting for the appointed hour . Towards midnight he was half frozen , as fidgety as thirty-two devils caught in a stole , and was about to give up his happiness , when a feeble light passed by the cracks of the window and came down towards the little door .