a large handsome house. All seemed to him in proper order as
usual; it was East Street, splendid and elegant as we now see it. He lay
with his feet towards a doorway, and exactly opposite sat the watchman
asleep.

"Gracious Heaven!" said he. "Have I lain here in the street and dreamed?
Yes; 'tis East Street! How splendid and light it is! But really it is
terrible what an effect that one glass of punch must have had on me!"

Two minutes later, he was sitting in a hackney-coach and driving to
Frederickshafen. He thought of the distress and agony he had endured,
and praised from the very bottom of his heart the happy reality--our own
time--which, with all its deficiencies, is yet much better than that in
which, so much against his inclination, he had lately been.

III. The Watchman's Adventure

"Why, there is a pair of galoshes, as sure as I'm alive!" said the
watchman, awaking from a gentle slumber. "They belong no doubt to the
lieutenant who lives over the way. They lie close to the door."

The worthy man was inclined to ring and deliver them at the house, for
there was still a light in the window; but he did not like disturbing
the other people in their beds, and so very considerately he left the
matter alone.

"Such a pair of shoes must be very warm and comfortable," said he; "the
leather is so soft and supple." They fitted his feet as though they
had been made for him. "'Tis a curious world we live in," continued he,
soliloquizing. "There is the lieutenant, now, who might go quietly to
bed if he chose, where no doubt he could stretch himself at his ease;
but does he do it? No; he saunters up and down his room, because,
probably, he has enjoyed too many of the good things of this world at
his dinner. That's a happy fellow! He has neither an infirm mother, nor
a whole troop of everlastingly hungry children to torment him. Every
evening he goes to a party, where his nice supper costs him nothing:
would to Heaven I could but change with him! How happy should I be!"

While expressing his wish, the charm of the shoes, which he had put on,
began to work; the watchman entered into the being and nature of the
lieutenant. He stood in the handsomely furnished apartment, and held
between his fingers a small sheet of rose-colored paper, on which some
verses were written--written indeed by the officer himself; for who has
not, at least once in his life, had a lyrical moment? And if one then
marks down one's thoughts, poet