eleven o'clock
Some were playing cards , others argued , or held their tongues and ate , drank , or walked about . One stout little woman , wearing a black velvet cap , blue and silver stomacher , pincushion , bunch of keys , silver buckles , braided hair , -- all distinctive signs of the mistress of a German inn -LRB- a costume which has been so often depicted in colored prints that it is too common to describe here -RRB- , -- well , this wife of the innkeeper kept the two friends alternately patient and impatient with remarkable ability . Little by little the noise decreased , the various travellers retired to their rooms , the clouds of smoke dispersed . When places were set for the two young men , and the classic carp of the Rhine appeared upon the table , eleven o'clock was striking and the room was empty . The silence of night enabled the young surgeons to hear vaguely the noise their horses made in eating their provender , and the murmur of the waters of the Rhine , together with those indefinable sounds which always enliven an inn when filled with persons preparing to go to bed . Doors and windows are opened and shut , voices murmur vague words , and a few interpellations echo along the passages . At this moment of silence and tumult the two Frenchmen and their landlord , who was boasting of Andernach , his inn , his cookery , the Rhine wines , the Republican army , and his wife , were all three listening with a sort of interest to the hoarse cries of sailors in a boat which appeared to be coming to the wharf .