midnight
Away I went , next , to the lesser roadside Inns of Italy ; where all the dirty clothes in the house -LRB- not in wear -RRB- are always lying in your anteroom ; where the mosquitoes make a raisin pudding of your face in summer , and the cold bites it blue in winter ; where you get what you can , and forget what you ca n't : where I should again like to be boiling my tea in a pocket-handkerchief dumpling , for want of a teapot . So to the old palace Inns and old monastery Inns , in towns and cities of the same bright country ; with their massive quadrangular staircases , whence you may look from among clustering pillars high into the blue vault of heaven ; with their stately banqueting-rooms , and vast refectories ; with their labyrinths of ghostly bedchambers , and their glimpses into gorgeous streets that have no appearance of reality or possibility . So to the close little Inns of the Malaria districts , with their pale attendants , and their peculiar smell of never letting in the air . So to the immense fantastic Inns of Venice , with the cry of the gondolier below , as he skims the corner ; the grip of the watery odours on one particular little bit of the bridge of your nose -LRB- which is never released while you stay there -RRB- ; and the great bell of St. Mark 's Cathedral tolling midnight . Next I put up for a minute at the restless Inns upon the Rhine , where your going to bed , no matter at what hour , appears to be the tocsin for everybody else 's getting up ; and where , in the table-d'hote room at the end of the long table -LRB- with several Towers of Babel on it at the other end , all made of white plates -RRB- , one knot of stoutish men , entirely dressed in jewels and dirt , and having nothing else upon them , _ will _ remain all night , clinking glasses , and singing about the river that flows , and the grape that grows , and Rhine wine that beguiles , and Rhine woman that smiles and hi drink drink my friend and ho drink drink my brother , and all the rest of it . I departed thence , as a matter of course , to other German Inns , where all the eatables are soddened down to the same flavour , and where the mind is disturbed by the apparition of hot puddings , and boiled cherries , sweet and slab , at awfully unexpected periods of the repast . After a draught of sparkling beer from a foaming glass jug , and a glance of recognition through the windows of the student beer-houses at Heidelberg and elsewhere , I put out to sea for the Inns of America , with their four hundred beds apiece , and their eight or nine hundred ladies and gentlemen at dinner every day .