cross-legged on a
board; he had read much lately of famous men, and he now said to his
mother, 'I want to be famous, too!'

He had his plans all made, and had, he said, plenty of money to carry
them out, for he had lately earned the immense sum (as it seemed to him)
of thirty shillings, by singing and reciting at the houses of rich
people. With this capital he begged his mother to let him go to
Copenhagen and try his fortune.

She consented unwillingly at last, and the fourteen-year-old boy set off
to make his own way in the world.

He reached Copenhagen--the city which now proudly claims him for her
own--late one September afternoon, and at once went to the theatre and
begged for employment, telling the manager he had a good voice and loved
acting.

'You are too thin for the stage,' said the manager, shortly.

'Let me have a salary of a hundred dollars, sir, and I will soon grow
fat,' quickly answered the boy.

'We only take people of education here,' said the manager, and poor Hans
had to go away with a heavy heart.

Could he only have foreseen that in a few years' time his own plays
would be acted at that very theatre, and a throng of eager citizens
would be applauding the words of the now friendless boy!

But this was all in the future. At present misery and starvation stared
him in the face.

At last, after he had met with endless failures, a rich Copenhagen
merchant saw there was genius in the boy, and, finding that he lacked
education, sent him to school to learn Latin and mathematics.

It was, of course, very galling to Hans, now a tall lad of seventeen, to
have to sit on a bench with little boys of nine and ten, and be jeered
at by both master and scholars for his backwardness. But Hans
persevered, and at last he passed all his examinations, and was granted
a travelling scholarship.

Meanwhile he had published his first book, which was at once successful;
the promise of his boyhood began to be fulfilled, for he wrote the fairy
tales by which he became famous, not only in his own country, but all
over Europe.

He travelled in Italy, France, Germany, and Spain, and in 1847 he came
to England, where, to his great delight, he found his stories better
known than even in his own country. He was a welcome guest at many of
our great houses, and, on a second visit to England some few years
later, he stayed with Charles Dickens at Gad's Hill.

Andersen never married; he lived in Copenhagen when not on hi