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Councillor. "But what's this?"

He turned round anew, firmly convinced that he was seriously ill. He gazed at
the street formerly so well known to him, and now so strange in appearance,
and looked at the houses more attentively: most of them were of wood, slightly
put together; and many had a thatched roof.

"No--I am far from well," sighed he; "and yet I drank only one glass of punch;
but I cannot suppose it--it was, too, really very wrong to give us punch and
hot salmon for supper. I shall speak about it at the first opportunity. I have
half a mind to go back again, and say what I suffer. But no, that would be too
silly; and Heaven only knows if they are up still."

He looked for the house, but it had vanished.

"It is really dreadful," groaned he with increasing anxiety; "I cannot
recognise East Street again; there is not a single decent shop from one end to
the other! Nothing but wretched huts can I see anywhere; just as if I were at
Ringstead. Oh! I am ill! I can scarcely bear myself any longer. Where the
deuce can the house be? It must be here on this very spot; yet there is not
the slightest idea of resemblance, to such a degree has everything changed
this night! At all events here are some people up and stirring. Oh! oh! I am
certainly very ill."

He now hit upon a half-open door, through a chink of which a faint light
shone. It was a sort of hostelry of those times; a kind of public-house. The
room had some resemblance to the clay-floored halls in Holstein; a pretty
numerous company, consisting of seamen, Copenhagen burghers, and a few
scholars, sat here in deep converse over their pewter cans, and gave little
heed to the person who entered.

"By your leave!" said the Councillor to the Hostess, who came bustling towards
him. "I've felt so queer all of a sudden; would you have the goodness to send
for a hackney-coach to take me to Christianshafen?"

The woman examined him with eyes of astonishment, and shook her head; she then
addressed him in German. The Councillor thought she did not understand Danish,
and therefore repeated his wish in German. This, in connection with his
costume, strengthened the good woman in the belief that he was a foreigner.
That he was ill, she comprehended directly; so she brought him a pitcher of
water, which tasted certainly pretty strong of the sea, although it had been
fetched from the well.

The Councillor supported his head on his hand, drew a long breath, and thought
over all the wondrous things he saw around him.

"Is this the Daily News of this evening?" he asked mechanically, as he saw the
Hostess push aside a large sheet of paper.

The meaning of this councillorship query remained, of course, a riddle to her,
yet she handed him the paper without replying. It was a coarse wood-cut,
representing a splendid meteor "as seen in the town of Cologne," which was to
be read below in bright letters.

"That is very old!" said the Councillor, whom this piece of antiquity began to

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