64 THE GOLOSHES OF FORTUNE.

how his head had been caught between the iron rails of the hos
pital.

“That’s where I must have caught it,” though he. “I must
do something at once. A Russian bath might be very good. I
wish I were lying on the highest board in the bath-house.”

And there he lay on the highest board in the vapour bath; but
he was lying there in all his clothes, in boots and goloshes, and
the hot drops from the ceiling were falling on his face.

“Hi!” he cried, and jumped down to take a plunge bath.

The attendant uttered a loud cry on seeing a person there with
all his clothes on. The volunteer had, however, enough presence
of mind to whisper to him, “it’s fora wager!” But the first thing
he did when he got into his own room was to put a big blister on
the nape of his neck, and another on his back, that they might
draw out his madness.

Next morning he had a very sore back ; and that was all he
had got by the goloshes of Fortune.

V.
The Transformation of the Copying Clerk.

The watchman, whom we surely have not yet forgotten, in the
meantime thought of the goloshes, which he had found and
brought to the hospital. He took them away ; but as neither the
lieutenant nor any one in the street would own them, they were
taken to the police office.

“They look exactly like my own goloshes,” said one of the
copying gentlemen, as he looked at the unowned articles and put
them beside his own. ‘ More than a shoemaker’s eye is required
to distinguish them from one another.”

“Mr. Copying Clerk,” said a servant, coming in with some
papers.

The copying clerk turned and spoke to the man: when he had
done this, he turned to look at the goloshes again; he was in
great doubt if the right-hand or the left-hand pair belonged to
him,

“It must be those that are wet,” he thought. Now here he
thought wrong, for these were the goloshes of Fortune; but why
should not the police be sometimes mistaken? He put them on,
thrust his papers into his pocket, and put a few manuscripts
under his arm, for they were to be read at home, and abstracts
to be made from them. But now it was Sunday morning, and
the weather was fine. ‘A walk to Fredericksburg would do me
good,” said he ; and he went out accordingly.

There could not be a quieter, steadier person than this young
man. We grant him his little walk with all our hearts ; it will
certainly do him good after so much s'tting, At first he only