midnight
Town bored him , yet he could not seem to rest away from it . He wandered in and out , up and down , an unquiet , irresolute soul , tremendously perplexed ... . There came one dark and sultry night , heavy beneath skies overcast , in August . Whitaker left a roof-garden in the middle of a stupid performance , and walked the streets till long after midnight , courting the fatigue that alone could bestow untroubled sleep . On his return , a sleepy hall-boy with a wilted collar ran the elevator up to his tenth-floor landing and , leaving him fumbling at the lock of his door , dropped clankingly out of sight . Whitaker entered and shut himself in with the pitch-blackness of his private hall . He groped along the wall for the electric switch , and found only the shank of it -- the hard-rubber button having disappeared .