“Put your right hand into your left preeches pocket, ten, in token
ov your vull zubmizzion unto te Angel ov te Odd.”
This thing, for very obvious reasons, I found it quite impossible
to do. In the first place, my left arm had been broken in my fall
from the ladder, and therefore, had I let go my hold with the
right hand I must have let go altogether. In the second place,
I could have no breeches until I came across the crow. I was
therefore obliged, much to my regret, to shake my head in the
negative, intending thus to give the Angel to understand that I
found it inconvenient, just at that moment, to comply with his very
reasonable demand! No sooner, however, had I ceased shaking my head
than—
“Go to der teuffel, ten!” roared the Angel of the Odd.
In pronouncing these words he drew a sharp knife across the
guide-rope by which I was suspended, and as we then happened to be
precisely over my own house (which, during my peregrinations, had
been handsomely rebuilt), it so occurred that I tumbled headlong
down the ample chimney and alit upon the dining-room hearth.
Upon coming to my senses (for the fall had very thoroughly
stunned me) I found it about four o’clock in the morning. I lay
outstretched where I had fallen from the balloon. My head groveled
in the ashes of an extinguished fire, while my feet reposed upon
the wreck of a small table, overthrown, and amid the fragments of a
miscellaneous dessert, intermingled with a newspaper, some broken
glasses and shattered bottles, and an empty jug of the Schiedam
Kirschenwässer. Thus revenged himself the Angel of the Odd.