own punishment. In his eagerness, he came so near the edge of the purse
that he slipped out into the pocket of the trousers; and when, in the evening,
the purse was taken out, the shilling was left behind in the corner to which it
had fallen. As the clothes were being carried into the hall, the shilling fell
out on the floor, unheard and unnoticed by any one. The next morning the
clothes were taken back to the room, the gentleman put them on, and started
on his journey again; but the shilling remained behind on the floor. After a
time it was found, and being considered a good coin, was placed with three
other coins. “Ah,” thought the shilling, “this is pleasant; I shall now see the
world, become acquainted with other people, and learn other customs.”
“Do you call that a shilling?” said some one the next moment. “That is
not a genuine coin of the country,-it is false; it is good for nothing.”
Now begins the story as it was afterwards related by the shilling himself.
“‘False! good for nothing!’ said he. That remark went through and
through me like a dagger. I knew that I had a true ring, and that mine was a
genuine stamp. These people must at all events be wrong, or they could not
mean me. But yes, I was the one they called ‘false, and good for nothing.’
“‘Then I must pay it away in the dark,’ said the man who had received
me. So I was to be got rid of in the darkness, and be again insulted in broad
daylight.
“‘False! good for nothing!’ Oh, I must contrive to get lost, thought I. And
I trembled between the fingers of the people every time they tried to pass
me off slyly as a coin of the country. Ah! unhappy shilling that I was! Of
what use were my silver, my stamp, and my real value here, where all these
qualities were worthless. In the eyes of the world, a man is valued just
according to the opinion formed of him. It must be a shocking thing to have
a guilty conscience, and to be sneaking about on account of wicked deeds.
As for me, innocent as I was, I could not help shuddering before their eyes
whenever they brought me out, for I knew I should be thrown back again up
the table as a false pretender. At length I was paid away to a poor old
woman, who received me as wages for a hard day’s work. But she could not
