le, however, he pushed his way out of the woods into
the open, and there stood the castle, only a little way ahead! All its
windows were ablaze with lights. A ray from them fell on the lazy
man's beast, and he saw what he was riding: it was a gigantic snail! a
snail as large as a calf!

A cold shudder ran over the lazy man's body, and he would have got off
his horrid animal then and there, but just then the clock struck once
more. It was the first of the long, slow strokes that mark midnight!
The man grew frantic when he heard it. He drove his heels into the
snail's sides, to make him hurry. Instantly, the snail drew in his
head, curled up in his shell, and left the lazy man sitting in a heap
on the ground!

The clock struck twice. If the man had run for it, he could still have
reached the castle, but, instead, he sat still and shouted for a horse.

"A beast, a beast!" he wailed, "any kind of a beast that will take me
to the castle!"

The clock struck three times. And as it struck the third note,
something came rustling and rattling out of the darkness, something
that sounded like a horse with harness. The lazy man jumped on its
back, a very queer, low back. As he mounted, he saw the doors of the
castle open, and saw his friend standing on the threshold, waving his
cap and beckoning to him.

The clock struck four times, and the new steed began to stir; as it
struck five, he moved a pace forward; as it struck six, he stopped; as
it struck seven, he turned himself about; as it struck eight, he began
to move backward, away from the castle!

The lazy man shouted, and beat him, but the beast went slowly backward.
And the clock struck nine. The man tried to slide off, then, but from
all sides of his strange animal great arms came reaching up and held
him fast. And in the next ray of moonlight that broke the dark clouds,
he saw that he was mounted on a monster crab!

One by one, the lights went out, in the castle windows. The clock
struck ten. Backward went the crab. Eleven! Still the crab went
backward. The clock struck twelve! Then the great doors shut with a
clang, and the castle of fortune was closed forever to the lazy man.

What became of him and his crab no one knows to this day, and no one
cares. But the industrious man was received by the Fairy of Fortune,
and made happy in the castle as long as he wanted to stay. And ever
afterward she was his friend, helping him not only to happiness for
hi