midnight
A drunken sailor standing on the step of the Bilkins mansion was no novelty . The street , as we have stated , led down to the wharves , and sailors were constantly passing . The house abutted directly on the street ; the granite door-step was almost flush with the sidewalk , and the huge old-fashioned brass knocker -- seemingly a brazen hand that had been cut off at the wrist , and nailed against the oak as a warning to malefactors -- extended itself in a kind of grim appeal to everybody . It seemed to possess strange fascinations for all seafaring folk ; and when there was a man-of-war in port the rat-tat-tat of that knocker would frequently startle the quiet neighborhood long after midnight . There appeared to be an occult understanding between it and the blue-jackets . Years ago there was a young Bilkins , one Pendexter Bilkins -- a sad losel , we fear -- who ran away to try his fortunes before the mast , and fell overboard in a gale off Hatteras . `` Lost at sea , '' says the chubby marble slab in the Old South Burying-Ground , `` ætat 18 . ''