Page:Fairy tales and other stories (Andersen, Craigie).djvu/106

 94 They were telling each other where they had been that day. The messenger of Fortune had only transacted a few unimportant affairs, as, for instance, she had preserved a new bonnet from a shower of rain, had procured an honest man a bow from a titled Nobody, and so on; but what she had still to relate was something quite extraordinary.

'I can likewise tell,' said she, 'that to-day is my birthday; and in honour of it a pair of goloshes has been entrusted to me, which I am to bring to the human race. These goloshes have the property that every one who puts them on is at once transported to the time and place in which he likes best to be—every wish in reference to time, place, and circumstance is at once fulfilled; and so for once man can be happy here below!'

'Believe me,' said Care, 'he will be very unhappy, and will bless the moment when he can get rid of the goloshes again.'

'What are you thinking of?' retorted the other. 'Now I shall put them at the door. Somebody will take them by mistake, and become the happy one!'

You see, that was the dialogue they held.

II

It was late. Councillor Knap, lost in contemplation of the times of King Hans, wished to get home; and fate willed that instead of his own goloshes he should put on those of Fortune, and thus went out into East Street. But by the power of the goloshes he had been put back three hundred years—into the days of King Hans; and therefore he put his foot into mud and mire in the street, because in those days there was not any pavement.

'Why, this is horrible—how dirty it is here!' said the councillor. 'The good pavement is gone, and all the lamps are put out.'

The moon did not yet stand high enough to give much light, and the air was tolerably thick, so that all objects