thing at a time. He wished to be a poet,
and he became one. Then he wanted to be a little bird, and in this
change he lost the characteristics of the former one. "Well,"
thought he, "this is charming; by day I sit in a police-office,
amongst the dryest law papers, and at night I can dream that I am a
lark, flying about in the gardens of Fredericksburg. Really a complete
comedy could be written about it." Then he flew down into the grass,
turned his head about in every direction, and tapped his beak on the
bending blades of grass, which, in proportion to his size, seemed to
him as long as the palm-leaves in northern Africa.

In another moment all was darkness around him. It seemed as if
something immense had been thrown over him. A sailor boy had flung his
large cap over the bird, and a hand came underneath and caught the
clerk by the back and wings so roughly, that he squeaked, and then
cried out in his alarm, "You impudent rascal, I am a clerk in the
police-office!" but it only sounded to the boy like "tweet, tweet;" so
he tapped the bird on the beak, and walked away with him. In the
avenue he met two school-boys, who appeared to belong to a better
class of society, but whose inferior abilities kept them in the lowest
class at school. These boys bought the bird for eightpence, and so the
clerk returned to Copenhagen. "It is well for me that I am
dreaming," he thought; "otherwise I should become really angry.
First I was a poet, and now I am a lark. It must have been the
poetic nature that changed me into this little creature. It is a
miserable story indeed, especially now I have fallen into the hands of
boys. I wonder what will be the end of it." The boys carried him
into a very elegant room, where a stout, pleasant-looking lady
received them, but she was not at all gratified to find that they
had brought a lark--a common field-bird as she called it. However, she
allowed them for one day to place the bird in an empty cage that
hung near the window. "It will please Polly perhaps," she said,
laughing at a large gray parrot, who was swinging himself proudly on a
ring in a handsome brass cage. "It is Polly's birthday," she added
in a simpering tone, "and the little field-bird has come to offer
his congratulations."

Polly did not answer a single word, he continued to swing
proudly to and fro; but a beautiful canary, who had been brought
from his own warm, fragrant fatherland, the summer previous, began
to sing as loud a