Page:The fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen (c1899).djvu/261

 "It is really frightful! but I can't recognise East Street. There is not a shop to be seen, and nothing but wretched old tumble-down houses, just as if I were in Roeskilde or Ringstedt. Surely I must be ill! So there's no use making any ceremony. But where, in the world, is the house? It is no longer the same; only there are still persons stirring in it. Oh! I must be very ill!"

He now pushed against a half-open door, through a chink in which a light was streaming. It was an inn such as existed in those times, being a kind of ale-house. The room looked like a Dutch interior: a knot of people, composed of seamen, Copenhagen citizens, together with a



couple of learned men, were in deep converse over their pitchers, and paid little attention to the new-comer.

"Excuse me," said the councillor of justice to the landlady; "I am very ill, and should be glad if you could send for a droschka to drive me to Christianshaven."

The woman stared at him, and shook her head, and then spoke to him in German. The councillor thought that she did not know Danish, and therefore repeated his request in German, which, together with his clothes, confirmed her in the opinion that he must be a foreigner. She soon understood that he was ill, and brought him a pitcher of water, which did, to be sure, smack somewhat of salt water, though it was drawn from the well outside.

The councillor leant his head on his hand, fetched his breath, and then endeavoured to sift the meaning of all the strange things that had befallen him.

"Is that the last number of the News of the Day?" asked he mechanically, seeing the landlady laying by a large piece of paper, which he took for the newspaper of his own times.