about eight o'clock
`` We have been rather slack lately , '' said a clerk jubilantly , `` but we have got a meaty bone now . '' And why should the young fellow not have been jubilant ? Before Calcraft retired from that profession which he so much adorned , he was pleased doubtless to know a man had been sentenced to be hung by the neck till he was dead . There is a pleasing adaptability about human nature which enables it to forget the possible pain the gratification of its own pleasure may involve to its fellow-creature ; and there can be no question but that Mr. Swanland regarded , and perhaps reasonably , the insane struggles of victims , who felt the hooks of liquidation troublesome , as Calcraft might the mad fight of a criminal against the needful pinioning which enabled matters to go off so decently and quietly about eight o'clock on certain Monday mornings in his memory . Nevertheless , and though he , at all events , must have had his innings out of Mortomley 's estate , Mr. Swanland felt disgusted at the result of his own management of the affair . Not because he had failed to pay the creditors even a farthing in the pound . To do Mr. Swanland strict justice , he looked upon creditors as he looked upon a debtor , namely , as natural enemies .