silver-headed stick.

"_Our_ ball can match with the King's," said he, and turned towards
the crowd in the street--his magnificent thoughts were visible in his
whole person. "Poor devils! who stare in at the portico, you are
altogether ragamuffins, compared to me!"

"Arrogance," said the dead; "dost thou see him?"

"Him!" repeated the clergyman; "he is a simpleton--a fool only, and
will not be condemned to eternal fire and torment."

"A fool only," sounded through the whole house of Arrogance.

And they flew into the four bare walls of Avarice, where skinny,
meagre, shivering with cold, hungry and thirsty, the old man clung
fast with all his thoughts to his gold. They saw how he, as in a
fever, sprang from his wretched pallet, and took a loose stone out of
the wall. There lay gold coins in a stocking-foot; he fumbled at his
ragged tunic, in which gold coins were sewed fast, and his moist
fingers trembled.

"He is ill: it is insanity; encircled by fear and evil dreams."

And they flew away in haste, and stood by the criminals' wooden couch,
where they slept side by side in long rows. One of them started up
from his sleep like a wild animal, and uttered a hideous scream: he
struck his companion with his sharp elbow, and the latter turned
sleepily round.

"Hold your tongue, you beast, and sleep! this is your way every night!
Every night!" he repeated; "yes, you come every night, howling and
choking me! I have done one thing or another in a passion; I was born
with a passionate temper, and it has brought me in here a second time;
but if I have done wrong, so have I also got my punishment. But one
thing I have not confessed. When I last went out from here, and passed
by my master's farm, one thing and another boiled up in me, and I
directly stroked a lucifer against the wall: it came a little too near
the thatch, and everything was burnt--hot-headedness came over it,
just as it comes over me, I helped to save the cattle and furniture.
Nothing living was burnt, except a flock of pigeons: they flew into
the flames, and the yard dog. I had not thought of the dog. I could
hear it howl, and that howl I always hear yet, when I would sleep; and
if I do get to sleep, the dog comes also--so large and hairy! He lies
down on me, howls, and strangles me! Do but hear what I am telling
you. Snore--yes, that you can--snore the whole night through, and I
not even a quarter of an hour!"

And the blood shone from the eyes of the fi