The streetlamps dripped a pale yellow against the night sky, polishing the wet cobblestones. The cobblestones were always wet at night; Bertie did not know why, as if it rained like clockwork and he always missed it. The lamplights were blurry suns in the haze of smoke and exhaust, coughing from auto pipes, billowing from sewer grates, drooling from manholes. The thin fog parted and curled as people sliced through, as autos turned a corner, headlights winking. It melted upon all of them, invisible in the daytime, and Bertie found it as comforting as a blanket. You are here, the city said, a
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