One o'clock in the morning
Finally the episode of the trade fracas over the remains of a small and dubious weakfish , terminating when the dissatisfied customer cast the delicacy at the head of the stall-man and missed him , the _ corpus delicti _ falling into the gutter where it was at once appropriated and rapt away by an incredulous , delighted , and mangy cat . A crude , commonplace , malodorous little street row , the sort of thing that happens , in varying phases , on a dozen East-Side corners seven days in the week . Banneker approached and treated the matter from the viewpoint of the cat , predatory , philosophic , ecstatic . One o'clock in the morning saw the final revision , for he had become enthralled with the handling of his subject . It was only a scant five pages ; less than a thousand words . But as he wrote and rewrote , other schemata rose to the surface of his consciousness , and he made brief notes of them on random ends of paper ; half a dozen of them , one crowding upon another . Some day , perhaps , when there were enough of them , when he had become known , had achieved the distinction of a signature like Gardner , there might be a real series ... .