Yet there was a small house backed up against the cemetery wall which was still awake and awake to evil purpose in that snoring district. There was not much to betray it from without; only a stream of warm vapour from the chimney-top a patch where the snow melted on the roof and a few half-obliterated footprints at the door. But within behind the shuttered windows Master Francis Villon the poet and some of the thievish crew with whom he consorted were keeping the night alive and passing round the bottle.