On the morrow—the third day—the storm abated, and his neighbors came to see old Anthony. Prone he lay, clasping in death his old nightcap in his hands.
Where were the tears he had shed, where the pearls? They were still in the nightcap. True pearls change not. The old thoughts, the tears of long ago—yes, they remained in the nightcap of the old pepper-fogey.
Covet not the old nightcap. It would make your brow burn, your pulse beat fast. It brings strange dreams. The first to put it on was to know this. It was fifty years later that the Burgomaster, who lived in luxury with wife and children, put it on. His dreams were of unhappy love, ruin, and starvation.
"Phew! how the nightcap burns," said he, and tore it off, and pearl after pearl fell from it to the ground. "Good gracious!" cried the Burgomaster, "I must be feverish; how they sparkle before my eyes." They were tears, wept half a century before by old Anthony of Eisenach.
To all who thereafter put on the nightcap came agitating visions and dreams. His own history was changed to that of Anthony, till it became quite a story. There may be many such stories; we, however, leave others to tell them.
We have told the first, and our last words shall be, "Don't wish for the old bachelor's nightcap."