There was something very odd about the expression of the man's face, so Harry Brackett thought, as he left the car and began to mount the steps which led to the station of the elevated railroad. He could not help thinking that there was a queer suggestion in that smile--a suggestion of a certain complicity on his part: it was as though the owner of the smile had ventured to hint that they were birds of a feather. "Confound his impudence!" said Harry Brackett to himself, as he stood before the window of the ticket-agent. Then he put his fingers into the little pocket in his overcoat and took from it a ten-cent piece and a five-cent piece. And he knew at once why the man opposite had smiled so impertinently--it was the smile of the pot at the kettle. (1886) [Illustration: In the Small Hours] Suddenly he found himself wide awake. He had been lost in sleep, dreamless and spaceless; and now, without warning, his slumber had left him abruptly and for no reason that he could guess. Although he strained his ear, he caught the echo of no unusual sound. He listened in vague doubt whether there might not be some one moving about in the apartment; but he could hear nothing except the shrill creak of the brakes of a train on the elevated railroad nearly a block away. Wilson Carpenter was in the habit of observing his own feelings, and he was surprised to note that he did not really expect to detect any physical cause for his unexpected awakening. Sleep had left him as inexplicably as it had swiftly. He lay there in bed with no restlessness; he heard the regular breathing of his wife, who was sleeping at his side; he saw the faint illumination from the door open into the next room where the baby was also asleep. He looked toward the window, but no ray of light was yet visible; and he guessed it to be about four o'clock in the morning, perhaps a little earlier. In that case he had not been in bed more than two or three hours at the most. He wondered why he had waked thus unexpectedly, since he had had a fatiguing day. Perhaps it was the excitement--there was no doubt that he had had his full share of excitement that evening--and he thrilled again as he recalled the delicious sensation of dull dread yielding at last to the certainty of success.