Then he took his flute out of its case, and marched up and down for a while blowing an _adagio_, in order to dissipate the fumes of the red Würtemberger. At length, when he felt tired enough, he rigged up a bed on the floor out of a Swedish saddle, that he took for a pillow, a saddle-blanket, said to have been used by Count Piccolomini, and a tiger-skin which the moths had eaten until it looked like a variegated geographical chart, but which was popularly supposed to have belonged to Froben, the Master of the Horse. However this might be, it served to make a softer bed for the tired body of the last of the romantic battle-painters; and he stretched himself upon it with a sigh, looked out once more on the moonlight night, and then fell into a deep and dreamless sleep, such as is rarely granted to a disappointed lover. CHAPTER IV. Elfinger had been sitting up late into the night awaiting the return of his friend, until at last he was forced to admit that there could be no doubt but what the adventure had not ended very gloriously. He fell asleep with a heavy heart, for his last hopes were now defeated. The next morning he crept mournfully down to the bank, and left it earlier than usual under some pretext or other. He hoped to find Rosenbusch at home at last. But the little, scantily furnished, untidy chamber of the battle-painter was still vacant. Could he have done something desperate, left the city or even--? In great excitement, for he loved his good comrade heartily, he mounted the dark stairs for the second time, after the close of his evening duties at his desk. He found on his little table an unmistakable symbolical sign that his friend was still in the land of the living. A large market-basket stood in the middle, provided with a long paper label such as they put on medicine-bottles; and on it were written these words: "A REMEDY FOR BEARDLESS ARTISTS. TO BE TAKEN ACCORDING TO THE NECESSITIES OF THE CASE. FROM THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE LEATHER GLOVE."[3] There was nothing in the basket but the sketch-book, in which the solitary outcast had written his lamentations the night before. The actor had not yet finished reading the last strophes when the door opened, and Rosenbusch solemnly entered, with such an indescribably mournful expression upon his face that it was impossible to look at him without laughing. As soon as he saw that Elfinger was once more capable of appreciating the humor of the situation, it was easy to perceive that a weight was lifted from his heart. He stepped hastily up to his friend, and, giving him both his hands, cried: "Drink to the lost, O stranger, And pray for his poor soul!" the final words of his own verses.