Page:The fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen (c1899).djvu/271

 clothes, boots, and goloshes still on. The hot drops of water fell from the ceiling upon his countenance.

"Dear! dear!" cried he, getting down to take a shower-bath. The attendant uttered a loud exclamation at the sight of a man in all his clothes.

He had sufficient presence of mind to whisper to the assistant: "It is a wager." But the first thing he did on reaching his own room was to put a large blister on his neck and another on his back, in order to draw out his madness.

Next morning his back was quite raw, and this was all he gained by the Goloshes of Happiness.

V—THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE CLERK

HE watchman—our old friend, whom we have not forgotten—recollected meanwhile the goloshes he had found and taken to the hospital. He therefore fetched them away; but as neither the lieutenant nor anybody belonging to the street recognised them as their property, he delivered them over to the police.

"They are very like my own goloshes," said one of the clerks, looking at the foundlings, and placing them beside his own. "It's only a shoemaker's eye that could see the difference of a pin between them."

"Master clerk," said a servant, coming in with some papers.

The clerk turned round to speak to the man, after which, on looking once more at the goloshes, he felt quite uncertain whether the pair on his left or that on his right were those belonging to him.

"It must be the wet ones that are mine," thought he. It happened to be quite the reverse, for it was the Goloshes of Happiness that were wet. But may not the police be subject to err occasionally? So he drew them on, put his papers into his pocket, and took several manuscripts under his arm, which he was going to read through and take minutes from at home; but it was Sunday afternoon, and the weather was fine. "It would do me good to take a turn to Fredericksberg," thought he, and away he went.

There was not a quieter or less frivolous young man in the world than he. So we will not grudge him his little walk, which could but be good for his health after so much sitting. He went his ways at first like a person without thought or wish; therefore, the goloshes had no opportunity to display their magic powers.

In one of the avenues he chanced to meet with an acquaintance, one of our younger poets, who told him that next day he intended setting out on his summer's journey.

"Are you already about to start?" cried the clerk. "What a free and happy man you are! You can fly whither you please, while such as we are chained by the foot."

"Only it is fastened to a bread-tree," returned the poet. "You have no cares for the morrow, and in your old age you will obtain a pension."

"Yours is the best life, after all," said the amanuensis. "It is a pleasure to sit and write verses. The whole world says agreeable things to you, and then you are your own master! You should only try for once how you would like to sit in a court of justice, and be bored with the trivial matters we have to listen to."

The poet shook his head, and the clerk shook his. They each retained their own opinion, and thereupon they parted.

"These poets are a peculiar race," thought the clerk. "I should like to try the experiment of becoming identified with a poet's being. I am certain I should not write such wretched verses as