one o'clock
So that almost by the time the two friends reached Broadway , and certainly some time before Leslie concluded his illustrative narration of police management in Naples , the arrangement for which they had especially come , and which had been apparently denied , was already in active operation . The reasons which had induced the Superintendent to underrate to Harding and Leslie the importance of the intelligence he had just received , or which had led to so sudden a change of mind , will probably remain a mystery even after the profounder mysteries of governmental management during the war are brought into broad daylight . There is no Sphynx like your `` man in authority , '' whether his reasons for silence be that he does not wish others to know his intentions , or that he _ does not know them himself _ . It was perhaps one o'clock when the two friends reached Broadway and turned downward to return to their different places of business -- Harding of course to his store near the Hospital , and Leslie to his little desk in the office of the _ Daily Thundergust _ , or anywhere else in the more frequented parts of the town , where he might chance to pick up material for an item or an article . Broadway at that point and at that moment presented an appearance that used to be extraordinary , but that of late months has been almost as common as its ordinary crowded condition . One of the Eastern regiments , that had just landed at the New Haven Railroad Depot , was on its way down to the Park Barracks , and the police had been clearing the street of omnibuses and carriages to make room for them . The sidewalks on both sides were pretty well filled with spectators -- idlers who never find anything better to do than gazing at street spectacles , and people of both sexes , with more or less of business on hand , who can not avoid pausing for a moment when the police sweep by to clear the street and the tap of the bass-drum is heard , -- just to see what the excitement is all about .