the hour, watchman?" asked a passer-by. But when the watchman
gave no reply, the merry roysterer, who was now returning home from a
noisy drinking bout, took it into his head to try what a tweak of the
nose would do, on which the supposed sleeper lost his balance, the body
lay motionless, stretched out on the pavement: the man was dead. When
the patrol came up, all his comrades, who comprehended nothing of the
whole affair, were seized with a dreadful fright, for dead he was,
and he remained so. The proper authorities were informed of the
circumstance, people talked a good deal about it, and in the morning the
body was carried to the hospital.

Now that would be a very pretty joke, if the spirit when it came back
and looked for the body in East Street, were not to find one. No doubt
it would, in its anxiety, run off to the police, and then to the
"Hue and Cry" office, to announce that "the finder will be handsomely
rewarded," and at last away to the hospital; yet we may boldly assert
that the soul is shrewdest when it shakes off every fetter, and every
sort of leading-string--the body only makes it stupid.

The seemingly dead body of the watchman wandered, as we have said, to
the hospital, where it was brought into the general viewing-room:
and the first thing that was done here was naturally to pull off the
galoshes--when the spirit, that was merely gone out on adventures, must
have returned with the quickness of lightning to its earthly tenement.
It took its direction towards the body in a straight line; and a few
seconds after, life began to show itself in the man. He asserted that
the preceding night had been the worst that ever the malice of fate had
allotted him; he would not for two silver marks again go through what he
had endured while moon-stricken; but now, however, it was over.

The same day he was discharged from the hospital as perfectly cured; but
the Shoes meanwhile remained behind.

IV. A Moment of Head Importance--An Evening's "Dramatic Readings"--A
Most Strange Journey

Every inhabitant of Copenhagen knows, from personal inspection, how
the entrance to Frederick's Hospital looks; but as it is possible that
others, who are not Copenhagen people, may also read this little work,
we will beforehand give a short description of it.

The extensive building is separated from the street by a pretty high
railing, the thick iron bars of which are so far apart, that in
all seriousness, it is said, some ve