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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. It was
the right ripe time for a free fight, for the festivities of the morrow
--Coronation Day--were already beginning; everybody was full of strong
drink and patriotism; within five minutes the free fight was occupying a
good deal of ground; within ten or twelve it covered an acre of so, and
was become a riot. By this time Hendon and the King were hopelessly
separated from each other and lost in the rush and turmoil of the roaring
masses of humanity. And so we leave them.
Chapter XXX. Tom's progress.
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