eight o'clock in the evening
My messenger , with praiseworthy art , contrived to engage in a game of tip-cat -LRB- what , I wonder , _ is _ a tip-cat ? -RRB- with some vagrant boys disporting themselves in the roadway , within view of Miss Judson 's house . Hence , after the lapse of more than an hour , Boots-Mercury beheld my recreant relative emerge , and from this point followed him -- always with extreme caution -- back to the Black Swan . Here he hung about the yard , favoured by his close acquaintance with the ostler , until eight o'clock in the evening , no event of the smallest importance occurring during all those hours . But at eight there arrived a young woman , with a packet from Miss Judson to Mr. Hawkehurst . The packet was small , and was sealed with red wax . This was all my Mercury could ascertain respecting it ; but this was something .