rite horse prances about proudly in golden
shoes. That is what annoys me more than all. But one must not look for
sympathy in this world! My career has been very interesting; but
what's the use of that, if nobody knows it? The world does not deserve
to be made acquainted with my history, for it ought to have given me
golden shoes, when the emperor's horse was shod, and I stretched out
my feet to be shod too. If I had received golden shoes, I should have
become an ornament to the stable. Now the stable has lost me, and the
world has lost me. It is all over!"

But all was not over yet. A boat, in which there were a few young
girls, came rowing up.

"Look, yonder is an old wooden shoe sailing along," said one of the
girls.

"There's a little creature bound fast to it," said another.

The boat came quite close to our beetle's ship, and the young girls
fished him out of the water. One of them drew a small pair of scissors
from her pocket, and cut the woollen thread, without hurting the
beetle; and when she stepped on shore, she put him down on the grass.

"Creep, creep--fly, fly--if thou canst," she said. "Liberty is a
splendid thing."

And the beetle flew up, and straight through the open window of a
great building; there he sank down, tired and exhausted, exactly on
the mane of the emperor's favourite horse, who stood in the stable
when he was at home, and the beetle also. The beetle clung fast to the
mane, and sat there a short time to recover himself.

"Here I'm sitting on the emperor's favourite horse--sitting on him
just like the emperor himself!" he cried. "But what was I saying? Yes,
now I remember. That's a good thought, and quite correct. The smith
asked me why the golden shoes were given to the horse. Now I'm quite
clear about the answer. They were given to the horse on _my_ account."

And now the beetle was in a good temper again.

"Travelling expands the mind rarely," said he.

The sun's rays came streaming into the stable, and shone upon him, and
made the place lively and bright.

"The world is not so bad, upon the whole," said the beetle; "but one
must know how to take things as they come."

WHAT THE OLD MAN DOES IS ALWAYS RIGHT.

I will tell you a story which was told to me when I was a little boy.
Every time I thought of the story, it seemed to me to become more and
more charming; for it is with stories as it is with many people--they
become better as they grow older.

I take it for