about a
quarter past nine o'clock
-LSB- Illustration -RSB- `` I was completely ready by half-past eight , although a moment 's consideration of course told me that at least another hour must elapse before there could be the least chance of my seeing him arrive , for whom I so anxiously longed . `` I can safely say so infatuated was I upon the subject , that no fond lover ever looked with more nervous anxiety for the arrival of the chosen object of his heart , than I did for that dead body , upon which I proposed to exert all the influences of professional skill , to recall back the soul to its earthly dwelling-place . `` At length I heard the sound of wheels . I found that my friend the hangman had procured a cart , in which he brought the coffin , that being a much quicker mode of conveyance than by bearers so that about a quarter past nine o'clock the vehicle , with its ghastly content , stopped at the door of his house . `` In my impatience I ran down stairs to meet that which ninety-nine men out of a hundred would have gone some distance to avoid the sight of , namely , a corpse , livid and fresh from the gallows . I , however , heralded it as a great gift , and already , in imagination I saw myself imitating the learned Frenchman , who had published such an elaborate treatise on the mode of restoring life under all sorts of circumstances , to those who were already pronounced by unscientific persons to be dead . `` To be sure , a sort of feeling had come over me at times , knowing as I did that the French are a nation that do not scruple at all to sacrifice truth on the altar of vanity , that it might be after all a mere rhodomontade ; but , however , I could only ascertain so much by actually trying , so the suspicion that such might , by a possibility , be the end of the adventure , did not deter me .