They were standing outside in the street. The mist had disappeared entirely, and the moon was shining brightly on the dark sky. The lamps had gone out, and deep shadows alternated with broad streaks of light in the narrow streets between the high gable-ends. A watchman standing at the corner with his long spear and antediluvian horn, called out the twelfth hour. Nothing else was to be seen in the death-like streets through which Oswald and Albert were now walking home, arm in arm, as it became such good and intimate friends: Oswald unusually heated and excited, Albert as cool and fresh as if he had been drinking nothing but water in the city cellars at Grunwald. They talked over the members of the town council and of the college on whom Oswald had to wait the next day, and Oswald's career at the college especially, which Albert declared was a fabulous idea, such as no one could have conceived but a Knight of La Mancha. Thus they reached the door of the hotel, then they wished each other good night. Oswald went in; Albert lounged down the main street, his hands in his pockets. But suddenly he stopped and seemed to meditate for a while. Then he turned into a by-street and vanished in a labyrinth of lanes and courts, formed by rheumatic little cottages, whose exterior did not belie the reputation enjoyed by this part of the town. CHAPTER XVIII. The official dwelling of the rector of the college, Doctor Moritz Clemens, was shining to-night in unwonted splendor. They had not only removed the covers from all the sofas, sofa-cushions, and chairs, in the best room and the sitting-room, so that the luxurious light of two lamps and half a dozen stearine candles poured in floods over the displayed magnificence; but even the rector's study, on one side, and the sitting-room and chamber of the two daughters, on the other side, had been changed into salons by removing the writing-table in the one, and the beds in the other, while each was lighted up with a lamp and three candles. The aromatic fragrance which always rises when incense is strewn on the hot-plate of the stove, perfumed all the rooms, and sufficed in itself to produce a festive excitement in every well-regulated mind.