three o'clock in the morning
Cigarette butts were heaped in a tarnished brass souvenir ash tray on a table at his side . The Sunday newspapers , from which he had extracted the sporting sections to peruse every line , were scattered on the floor around his chair . His scraggy hair tousled on his head , a growth of black , wiry beard covering his face , coatless and collarless , he was a picture of coarse self-indulgence . Returning to his room at three o'clock in the morning after separating from the mayor , Brennan , John and Smith following their escape from `` Gink '' Cummings ' pistol shots , he had slept until noon . He went to the cheap dairy lunch near his rooming house for a heavy breakfast of ham and eggs , purchased the Sunday papers and came back to smoke and read . The room with its disordered bed , drab walls dotted with sporting prints , dusty , rickety furnishings , threadbare carpet and grimy lace curtains , was a dreary , prison-like place . But to Murphy it was the place of his content , as much of a home as he had ever had .