about five o'clock
But the old commander shouted after the messenger , `` Tell that lubberly _ yoho _ -LSB- 2 -RSB- that if I catch him within a cable 's length of my house , I 'll break every d -- d bone in his tailor-built body . '' This threat was duly reported to the crest-fallen vender of pins and bobbin , who settled his bills , and accomplished his escape , with as little parade and as much expedition as possible ; a movement that excited full as much conversation as his first appearance and intimacy in Captain Bowline 's family ; and while one party were confident that he had only gone to New York to make preparations for his marriage , and another were equally sure that Mary had , in nautical parlance , `` given him his walking ticket , '' the story of the accident and Mary Bowline 's narrow escape at the Devil 's Gap came out , with suitable additions and embellishments , and of course the whole affair wore a different face at once . Old Haddock , the fisherman , was seized upon one evening in a ship-chandlery and grocery store , that was the usual Rialto of the loungers in B -- , and rigorously cross-questioned . The man of hooks and lines hitched up his trowsers , and proceeded to enlighten his audience as follows : -- `` Why you see that ` are New York chap and Miss Mary took a stroll down Jade 's Walk as it might be about five o'clock in the arternoon , P. M. as the newspapers say . Well , they went down Squaw Beach , and so clean away out as fur as the pint ; and when they was coming back , and got to the furder eend of the walk , the Yorker he kinder shinned up to her , and she did n't like it , for I knowed all along she meant to have Captain Kelson . Well , one word brought on another , till finally he conducted himself in a very promiscuous manner , and she told him to go ` long about his business , or she 'd tell Captain Kelson of his doings . Well , that made him just about as mad as a hoe , and so when they come to the Devil 's Gap he kinder kicked away one eend of the bridge , and then turned to and hauled down that ` ere scrub oak that growed clost to the bridge , so 's folk mought think 't was done by accident ; and so there the poor gal was left by herself till old Captain Bowline and I and my two boys and Captain Kelson , come there and rigged a kind of trumporary bridge like , and got her safe over , and that 's the whole consarnment of the matter as far as I know any thing o n't . ''