“I never saw a man slip into drink, like a girl into her shift, so swiftly and with such divine simplicity,” lisped Struve. “Do wash his face, someone; he is painted like a _demi-mondaine_, and the paint has broken loose over his nose. Can’t possibly take him into the street such a disgraceful figure.” They washed De Nani’s face with white wine and Toto’s handkerchief, whilst the old man struggled and resisted like a child. It was a mournful spectacle, and Toto did not laugh as the others did. “That’s what’s the end of all,” he thought. “Eugh! what a beastly thing life is!” “Now put on his hat,” commanded Pelisson, who acted as master of the ceremonies, “and jam it down—that’s right. I will carry his cane. Drive him before you, and call a cab,” he cried to the _garçon_, handing him a napoleon for _pourboire_. They got the old man into a fiacre, weeping and protesting and fighting like a lunatic with his keepers. “Where shall we send him to?” asked Pelisson. “I don’t know where he lives; send him to the Morgue, send him to the Prefecture, send him anywhere you like,” said Toto. “I know,” said Struve. “I have an enemy—he’s a Legitimist; I’ll send him a drunken Marquis for a present.” And he gave the name and address of his enemy to the driver, with half a napoleon to pay the fare. “Get him into the house at any price,” commanded Struve; “he’s the father of the gentleman who lives there. There goes the old nobility.” He finished as the cab drove away, leaving a thin stream of curses on the morning air. And little did Toto dream where those curses would come to roost. “What a jolly night we have had!” said Gaillard, as they parted at the corner of the Rue de la Paix. “And we have all done something,” said Pelisson. “You have written a poem,—don’t have that shirt washed, they’ll sell it in strips after you are dead,—and I have written my article, and Struve has made a present to his enemy of De Nani, who has made a beast of himself.” “And I,” said Toto, “have made a fool of myself.” “That’s what you were born for,” said Pelisson. “But never mind, Toto, you make a most charming fool.” Then Toto found himself alone at the corner of the Rue de la Paix. Some she-asses were passing, and he stopped the _auvergnat_ driving them, and had a glass of milk, because that was _chic_, and when he had drunk the milk he wished he had not, because there was no one to look; and, besides, he was tired of being _chic_. Then, with the asses’ milk still upon his lips, he came along down the Rue de la Paix in the direction of the river. The change of his five-franc piece the _auvergnat_ had given him mostly in copper; it bulged out his trousers-pocket, and made a clanking sound as he walked. Paris was waking up, the lidlike shutters of the shops were rising through a thousand streets; and as he passed through the Place Vendôme several early morning cabs laden with luggage from the Nord Station tore by.