About ten o’clock
Hendon moved on again , mightily contented with the answer -- but astounded at it too . The whole journey was made without an adventure of importance . But it ended with one . About ten o'clock on the night of the 19th of February they stepped upon London Bridge , in the midst of a writhing , struggling jam of howling and hurrahing people , whose beer-jolly faces stood out strongly in the glare from manifold torches -- and at that instant the decaying head of some former duke or other grandee tumbled down between them , striking Hendon on the elbow and then bounding off among the hurrying confusion of feet . So evanescent and unstable are men 's works in this world ! -- the late good King is but three weeks dead and three days in his grave , and already the adornments which he took such pains to select from prominent people for his noble bridge are falling . A citizen stumbled over that head , and drove his own head into the back of somebody in front of him , who turned and knocked down the first person that came handy , and was promptly laid out himself by that person 's friend .