five o'clock
`` Certainly . '' The other evening papers , more honest than The Evening New Yorker , admitted , though , as it were , regretfully and in an inconspicuous finale to their accounts that the central figure of the sensation was only a reporter . But the fact of his being guest on a yacht was magnified and glorified . At five o'clock Banneker arrived , having been bailed out after some difficulty , for the police were frightened and ugly , foreseeing that this swift vengeance upon the notorious gang , meted out by a private hand , would throw a vivid light upon their own inefficiency and complaisance . Happily the District Attorney 's office was engaged in one of its periodical feuds with the Police Department over some matter of graft gone astray , and was more inclined to make a cat 's - paw than a victim out of Banneker . Though inwardly strung to a high pitch , for the police officials had kept him sleepless through the night by their habitual inquisition , Banneker held himself well in hand as he went to the City Desk to report gravely that he had been unable to come earlier . `` So we understand , Mr. Banneker , '' said Mr. Greenough , his placid features for once enlivened .