midnight
The parapets in front of the hotels were usually fringed with fishers of all ages . One day I thought I would stop and see a fish caught . The result brought back to my mind , very forcibly , a circumstance which I had not thought of before for twelve years . This one : THE MAN WHO PUT UP AT GADSBY 'S When my odd friend Riley and I were newspaper correspondents in Washington , in the winter of ' 67 , we were coming down Pennsylvania Avenue one night , near midnight , in a driving storm of snow , when the flash of a street-lamp fell upon a man who was eagerly tearing along in the opposite direction . `` This is lucky ! You are Mr. Riley , ai n't you ? '' Riley was the most self-possessed and solemnly deliberate person in the republic .