three o'clock in the morning
The squirrel hunter slouched out of the door to his carryall . While he was climbing over the wheel Goree was collecting , with feverish celerity , the money that had fallen from his hand to the floor . As the vehicle slowly turned about , the sheep , with a coat of newly grown wool , was hurrying , in indecent haste , along the path to the court-house . At three o'clock in the morning they brought him back to his office , shorn and unconscious . The sheriff , the sportive deputy , the county clerk , and the gay attorney carried him , the chalk-faced man `` from the valley '' acting as escort . `` On the table , '' said one of them , and they deposited him there among the litter of his unprofitable books and papers . `` Yance thinks a lot of a pair of deuces when he 's liquored up , '' sighed the sheriff reflectively .