Several were giddy with the haze of their potations, and, having lurched out into the open world, more than one stood with difficulty, though none were wanting in the desire for dignity. All night long, Noll and Horace Malahide had been stealthily exchanging their full glasses for the emptied glasses of beer-soaking bohemians; but, even so, the fumes of the place were in their brains, and the fresh air made them both for a moment light-headed. The old bibbers of the place, stupid and smoke-stained, and sphinx-like in reserve, stepped out of the tavern cautiously, pale, weary, and nerveless. As the old poet, with his wreath of wilted white roses, lurched out into the night, the door-keeper shut and locked the door from within. The old man tripped over his own feet, stumbled, and sat down suddenly on the footpath, whence he bade them all good-night repeatedly, and fervently recommended them to the care of God. The pale youth, holding Noll’s arm, which he had seized, said, with a hiccup: “Mon Dieu, what a night!” “Ay,” said the frequenters, shivering with the cold, and drawing their thin cloaks about them--“what a night!” The pale youth burst into tears, and made as though to fling his arms round Noll’s neck, but missed his calculation, and fell over the wreath-crowned old Gattepoésie. He tried to pick himself up; and, as he stood on all fours, he said, with a hiccup: “He will go mad.” “Ah, yes,” said an old bohemian--“they knew how to live--they knew how to live.” They all sighed: “Yes,” said they--“they knew how to live.” The bell rang and clinked and swung, hoarsely complaining, over the bed in the little dark den of the concierge; and Madame Hodendouche, rousing sulkily, sat up amongst her bedclothes and pulled the string viciously that drew the bolt of the postern in the great gate outside, muttering a snuffling curse on the lateness of the night. “Ring--ring--ring, thou pestilence!” she scolded savagely. The gate outside shut with a slam, feet tramped past, a voice called, and all was silence again. “Hodendouche,” she said sulkily to her snoring bedfellow--“the Englishman does not give madame too much of his company in these days--I had thought them lovers, but they are indeed married. He is ever more late now.” She settled her fat little body down amongst the bedclothes: “Yes, thou mayest well snore, Hodendouche, thou lazy hog--but I kept the Englishman ringing till he broke even thy sleep, and a good cooling will do the fine fellow no ill. He has rung off and on this good half-hour--I only fear he may have taken some varnish off the gate with his pestiferous kickings and knockings....” In the smoky twilight Noll softly entered the shadows of the room, and as he gently closed the door, he heard Betty toss restlessly in troubled sleep. He went and sat down upon the side of the bed: “Betty,” said he, taking her hand, “can’t you sleep?”