Page:Fairy tales and stories (Andersen, Tegner).djvu/221

Rh He had jumped into the dust-bin, where there were all sorts of rubbish—cabbage-stalks, sweepings, and gravel that had been washed down through the gutter.

"Well, I seem to have got into a nice place! My gilding will soon come off here. But what wretched creatures have I fallen amongst?" he said, looking askance at a long cabbage-stalk which had been plucked of all its green, and a curious round thing which looked like an old apple. But it was not an apple; it was an old ball which had been lying for many years up in the gutter under the roof, and through which the water had been oozing.

"Thank Heaven, here is one of one's own class, whom one can speak to!" said the ball, looking at the gilt top. "I am, strictly speaking, of morocco, sewed by maidenly hands, and have a cork in my body, but no one would think it, to look at me. I was very near getting married to a swallow, but then I fell into the gutter, and there I have been lying for five years with the water oozing through me. It is a long time, believe me, for a maiden!"

But the top did not say anything. He was thinking of his old sweetheart, and the more he heard, the clearer it became to him that it was she.

Just then the servant girl came to empty the dust-bin: "Hullo! there's the gilt top!" she exclaimed.

And the top was again brought into the house and became an object of esteem and appreciation. But nothing more was heard of the ball, and the top never spoke of his old love; love soon dies when one's sweetheart has been lying for five years in a gutter with the water oozing through her; in fact, one would never know her again when one met her in the dust-bin.