Dolefully I drink my beer, But no single line I write. There's the wretched rent to pay, Yet I glower at pen and ink: Oh, inspire me, Muse, I pray, ~It is later than you think!~

Hello! there's a pregnant phrase. Bravo! let me write it down; Hold it with a hopeful gaze, Gauge it with a fretful frown; Tune it to my lyric lyre . . . Ah! upon starvation's brink, How the words are dark and dire: It is later than you think.

Weigh them well. . . . Behold yon band, Students drinking by the door, Madly merry, ~bock~ in hand, Saucers stacked to mark their score. Get you gone, you jolly scamps; Let your parting glasses clink; Seek your long neglected lamps: It is later than you think.

Look again: yon dainty blonde, All allure and golden grace, Oh so willing to respond Should you turn a smiling face. Play your part, poor pretty doll; Feast and frolic, pose and prink; There's the Morgue to end it all, And it's later than you think.

Yon's a playwright -- mark his face, Puffed and purple, tense and tired; Pasha-like he holds his place, Hated, envied and admired. How you gobble life, my friend; Wine, and woman soft and pink! Well, each tether has its end: Sir, it's later than you think.

See yon living scarecrow pass With a wild and wolfish stare At each empty absinthe glass, As if he saw Heaven there. Poor damned wretch, to end your pain There is still the Greater Drink. Yonder waits the sanguine Seine . . . It is later than you think.

Lastly, you who read; aye, you Who this very line may scan: Think of all you planned to do . . . Have you done the best you can? See! the tavern lights are low; Black's the night, and how you shrink! God! and is it time to go? Ah! the clock is always slow; It is later than you think; Sadly later than you think; Far, far later than you think.

Scarcely do I scribble that last line on the back of an old envelope when a voice hails me. It is a fellow free-lance, a short-story man called MacBean. He is having a feast of ~Marennes~ and he asks me to join him.

MacBean is a Scotsman with the soul of an Irishman. He has a keen, lean, spectacled face, and if it were not for his gray hair he might be taken for a student of theology. However, there is nothing of the Puritan in MacBean. He loves wine and women, and money melts in his fingers.

He has lived so long in the Quarter he looks at life from the Parisian angle. His knowledge of literature is such that he might be a Professor, but he would rather be a vagabond of letters. We talk shop. We discuss the American short story, but MacBean vows they do these things better in France. He says that some of the ~contes~ printed every day in the ~Journal~ are worthy of Maupassant. After that he buys more beer, and we roam airily over the fields of literature, plucking here and there a blossom of quotation. A fine talk, vivid and eager. It puts me into a kind of glow.

MacBean pays the bill from a handful of big notes, and the thought of my own empty pockets for a moment damps me. However, when we rise to go, it is well after midnight, and I am in a pleasant daze. The rest of the evening may be summed up in the following jingle:

Noctambule

Zut! it's two o'clock. See! the lights are jumping. Finish up your ~bock~, Time we all were humping. Waiters stack the chairs, Pile them on the tables; Let us to our lairs Underneath the gables.

Up the old Boul' Mich' Climb with steps erratic. Steady . . . how I wish I was in my attic! Full am I with cheer; In my heart the joy stirs; Couldn't be the beer, Must have been the oysters.

In obscene array Garbage cans spill over; How I wish that they Smelled as sweet as clover! Charing women wait; Cafes drop their shutters; Rats perambulate Up and down the gutters.

Down the darkened street Market carts are creeping; Horse with wary feet, Red-faced driver sleeping. Loads of vivid greens,