In the smoky twilight that goes before the dawn, as the purple night moved westward over the city, sweeping the world with dusky train, the door-keeper in fantastic livery, his cocked hat on the back of his head, yawned, as beadles yawn at sermon-time, and unlocked the door of the tavern that is called The Scarlet Jackass, to let the revellers pass out into the street, Noll and the young students along with them.
They stood on the pavement in the chill air to make an end of their last gossip before parting on their separate ways.
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.”