nine o'clock in the morning
So Smith stood by his post , but there was at times an expression in his face which gave F. Mills O'Connor himself cause for careful consideration . But to Darius Howell , somewhat awkwardly saying good-by at the Guardian 's door , Smith 's smile was as sunny as the skies of Schuyler , Maine . For troubles often turned out to be largely imaginary , while Darius was indubitably real . Promptly at nine o'clock in the morning of every business day for fifteen years , Hannibal G. Pelgram , uncle of Stanwood Pelgram , had seated himself at his desk in the office of the Pelgram Plumbers ' Supply Company , and it was rarely that he left before his stenographer had begun to show signs of impatience and anxiety . But in the sixteenth year of his reign his liver , which up to that time had acted with the most commendable regularity , began to develop alarming eccentricities of behavior . Mr. Pelgram became gradually less certain in his attendance , and finally his struggle with the refractory liver ended in the victory of that inconspicuous but important organ , and he passed peacefully away at a German spa in the course of taking a cure which would very likely have killed him even had he been in perfectly normal health . His will began by the customary direction to his executor to pay his just debts and funeral expenses -- exactly as though the executor was assumed to be a thoroughly unscrupulous person who , although not benefiting himself in the least by his dishonesty , would try in every possible way to evade settlement with all the dead man 's legitimate creditors , including the undertaker .