wer of laughter given. Ha! ha! ha!"
laughed Polly, and repeated his witty saying, "Now let us be men."

"You little gray Danish bird," said the canary, "you also have
become a prisoner. It is certainly cold in your forests, but still
there is liberty there. Fly out! they have forgotten to close the
cage, and the window is open at the top. Fly, fly!"

Instinctively, the clerk obeyed, and left the cage; at the same
moment the half-opened door leading into the next room creaked on
its hinges, and, stealthily, with green fiery eyes, the cat crept in
and chased the lark round the room. The canary-bird fluttered in his
cage, and the parrot flapped his wings and cried, "Let us be men;" the
poor clerk, in the most deadly terror, flew through the window, over
the houses, and through the streets, till at length he was obliged
to seek a resting-place. A house opposite to him had a look of home. A
window stood open; he flew in, and perched upon the table. It was
his own room. "Let us be men now," said he, involuntarily imitating
the parrot; and at the same moment he became a clerk again, only
that he was sitting on the table. "Heaven preserve us!" said he;
"How did I get up here and fall asleep in this way? It was an uneasy
dream too that I had. The whole affair appears most absurd."

THE BEST THING THE GOLOSHES DID

Early on the following morning, while the clerk was still in
bed, his neighbor, a young divinity student, who lodged on the same
storey, knocked at his door, and then walked in. "Lend me your
goloshes," said he; "it is so wet in the garden, but the sun is
shining brightly. I should like to go out there and smoke my pipe." He
put on the goloshes, and was soon in the garden, which contained
only one plum-tree and one apple-tree; yet, in a town, even a small
garden like this is a great advantage.

The student wandered up and down the path; it was just six
o'clock, and he could hear the sound of the post-horn in the street.
"Oh, to travel, to travel!" cried he; "there is no greater happiness
in the world: it is the height of my ambition. This restless feeling
would be stilled, if I could take a journey far away from this
country. I should like to see beautiful Switzerland, to travel through
Italy, and,"--It was well for him that the goloshes acted immediately,
otherwise he might have been carried too far for himself as well as
for us. In a moment he found himself in Switzerland, closely packed
with eight others in