He looked at a big clock over a café on the opposite side of the way, and sighed. It pointed to a quarter to nine. He was due at La Closerie de Lilas at ten; he was a member of the band; there was a students' fancy-dress ball that night, and he evidently hated the business, though he said no word of complaint. Poor Franzius! Simple soul, poet and peasant, child of a woodcutter in Hartz, condemned to live by the gift that God had given him, just as one might imagine some child condemned to live by the sale of some lovely toy, the present of an Emperor--what a fate his was, forever surrounded by the flare of gas, the clatter of beer-mugs, and the foetid life of music-hall and café-chantant! "Come," I said. And, taking him by the arm, I led him into the nearest café. You could dine here sumptuously for 1 franc 50, wine included. We found a vacant table; and as we waited for our soup the heart in me was touched at the way the world and the years had treated this friend who was part of the romance of my life; for the pitiless gaslight showed up all--the coat so old and frayed, yet still, somehow, respectable; the face showing lines that ought never to have been there. I hugged myself at the thought of my money, and what I could do for him. But in this I reckoned without Franzius. He was hungry, and he enjoyed his dinner frankly, and like a child. He had the whole bottle of wine to himself. He had not had such a dinner for a long time, and he said so. Then I gave him the best cigar the café could supply, a black affair that smelt like burning rags, and we wandered out of the café, he, at least in outward appearance, the happiest man in Paris. "And the Closerie de Lilas?" said I, when we were on the pavement. "Ah, oui!" sighed Franzius, coming back from the paradise of digestion. "It is true that I should be getting there, and we must say good-bye." "You said it was a fancy-dress ball?" "Yes." "I'd have gone with you only for that." "But you will do as you are!" cried he, his face lighting up with pleasure at the thought of bringing me along with him. "Ma foi! it is not altogether fancy-dress, for Messieurs les Étudiants have not always the money to spend on dress. People go as they like." "Very well," I replied. "Allons!" And we started. When we reached our destination people were arriving fast, and there was a good deal of noise. A Japanese lantern was going in, and a cabinet was being put out by two grave-faced gendarmes. The cabinet was shouting, laughing, and protesting; at least, the head was that was stuck out of the top of it, and belonged presumably to the two legs that appeared below. It was very funny and fantastic, the gravity of the officers of the law contrasting so quaintly with the business they were about. Inside the big saloon all was light and colour and laughter, the band was tuning up, and Franzius rushed to the orchestra, promising to see me before I went. I leaned against the wall and looked around me.