Page:Fairy tales and stories (Andersen, Tegner).djvu/92

60 of him, and behind it a large house. He recognized it as well as the house next door to it. It was Östergade, such as we all know it; he was lying with his feet toward a gateway and opposite to him sat the night watchman asleep.

"Bless me! Have I been lying here in the street, dreaming?" he said. "Yes, this is Östergade! How delightfully light and bright! It is terrible to think how one glass of toddy could have affected me!"

Two minutes afterward he sat in a carriage, which drove him to Christianshavn, thinking of the anxiety and anguish he had gone through, and praised with all his heart the happy reality—our own times—which, with all their shortcomings, were far better than the period of which he had just had a glimpse; and that, I think, was very sensible of the councilor.

III. THE WATCHMAN'S ADVENTURE

"Why, here's a pair of galoshes!" said the night watchman. "They must belong to the lieutenant who lives up there. They are lying close to the gate!"

The honest man would gladly have rung the bell and left the galoshes, for there was still a light to be seen in the house, but he did not like to awaken the other people in the house, and so he let it be.

"It must be very warm to have a pair of these things on!" he said. "How soft the leather is!" He put them on and they fitted him exactly. "What a funny world this is! Now there 's the lieutenant, he might lie in his warm bed, but do you think he does? No, he will keep pacing up and down the room. Ah, he is a happy man! He has neither wife nor youngsters! Every evening he goes out to some party. I only wish I were he, then I should be a happy man!"

The moment he uttered this wish the magic power of the galoshes he had put on took effect; the watchman passed over into the lieutenant's body and mind. There he stood, up in the room, holding between his fingers a small rose-colored paper, on which was a poem, written by the lieutenant himself; for who has not, at some time or other in his life, been in the mood to write poetry, and if you then write down your thoughts, then you have the verses. On this paper was written:—

WERE I BUT RICH! Were I but rich! This was my constant prayer When scarce an ell in length—without a care. Were I but rich, a captain I would be, With saber, plume, and coat so brave to see. Then came the day when fortune smiled on me: A captain was I—but a poor man still! For such was heaven's will.