Had monsieur a cigarette to spare? Monsieur had, and monsieur thought that the thanks for it were out of all proportion to its value; but they were totally eclipsed by the praises of monsieur's wonderful generosity in paying for a glass of absinthe and sugar for the man who made faces at six sous apiece. The quiet but none the less high tension of the place, the noise of the singing, the rattling of glasses and saucers, the stifling foul air of the room, filled me with weariness and threatened me with nausea. Things had moved in a constant whirl all night, and now it was nearly four o'clock. How much longer will this last? "Till five o'clock," answered the musician; then all the lights go out, and the place is closed; and our friends seek their cold, cheerless rooms, to sleep far into the afternoon. We paid for our saucers, and after parting adieux left in company with the musician and the aesthetic poet. How deliciously sharp and refreshing was the cold, biting air as we stepped out into the night! It seemed as though I had been breathing molasses. The fog was thicker than ever, and the night was colder. The two twisted gas-lamps were no longer burning as we crossed the slippery stone-paved court and ascended to the narrow street. The musician wrapped a gray muffler about his throat and thrust his hands deep into his pockets. The poet had no top-coat, but he buttoned his thin jacket tightly about him, and shivered. "Shall we have some lait chaud and a croissant?" inquired the musician. Yes, anything hot would be good, even milk; but where could we get it? "Ah, you shall see!" We had not gone far when it gave me a start to recognize a figure that we had seen in the Boul' Mich' on our way to the Soleil d'Or. It was that of an outcast of the boulevards, now slinking through the shadows toward the river. We had been accosted by him in front of one of the brilliant _café_s, as, trembling and rubbing his hands, a picture of hopeless dejection and misery, and in a quavering voice he begged us to buy him a drink of brandy. [Illustration: 0210] It probably saved him from an attack of delirium tremens that night, but here he was drifting, with a singular fatality, toward the river and the Morgue. Now, that his day's work of begging was done, all his jackal watchfulness had disappeared, and an inner vision seemed to look forth from his bleared eyes as their gaze strained straight and dull toward the black river. It may have been a mere fancy, but the expression in his eyes reminded me strongly of similar things that I had seen on the slabs in the Morgue.