72 THE GOLOSHES OF FORTUNE.

with pepper and rancid oil. This last dainty played a chief part ina
salad ; musty eggs and roasted cocks’-combs were the best dishes,
Even the wine had a strange taste—it was a dreadful mixture.

At night the boxes were placed against the doors. One of the
travellers kept watch while the rest slept. The theologian was
the sentry. Oh, how close it was in there! The heat oppressed
him, the gnats buzzed and stung, and the m7seradclz outside
moaned in their dreams,

“ Yes, travelling would be all very well,” said the theologian,
“if one had no body. If the body could rest and the mind fly!
Wherever I go, I find a want that oppresses my heart: it is
something better than the present moment that I desire. Yes,
something better--the best; but what is that, and where is it?
In my own heart I know very well what I want : I want to attain
to a happy goal, the happiest of all!”

And so soon as the word was spoken he found himself at home.
The long white curtains hung down from the windows, and in
the middle of the room stood a black coffin ; in this he was lying
in the quiet sleep of death : his wish was fulfilled—his body was
at rest and his spirit roaming. “Esteem no man happy who is
not yet in his grave,” were the words of Solon ; here their force
was proved anew.

Every corpse is a sphinx of immortality ; the sphinx here also
in the black sarcophagus answered, what the living man had laid
down two days before: :

‘Thou strong, stern Death! Thy silence waketh fear :
Thou leavest mould’ring gravestones for thy traces,
Shall not the soul see Jacob's ladder here?

No resurrection type but churchyard grasses ?
‘The deepest woes escape the world’s dull eye!
Thou that alone on duty’s path hast sped,
Heavier those duties on thy heart would lie
Than lies the earth now on thy coffined head,”

Two forms were moving to and fro in the room. We know
them both. They were the Fairy of Care and the Ambassadress
of Happiness. They both bent over the dead man.

“Do you see?” said Care. “What happiness have your
goloshes brought to men?”

“They have at least brought a permanent benefit to him who
slumbers here,” replied Happiness.

“Oh, no!” said Care. “He went away of himself, he was not
summoned. His spirit was not strong enough to lift the treasures
which he had been destined to lift. I will do him a favour.”

And she drew the goloshes from his feet ; then the sleep of
death was ended, and the awakened man raised himself up.
Care vanished, and with her the goloshes disappeared too:
doubtless she looked upon them as her property.

—p——