THE HISTORY OF A NUT-CRACKER. 41

strike, strike, clocks all: sound his last hour—for his fate
is nigh at hand!”
And then, dong—dong— i
dong—the clock struck twelve |
in a hollow and gloomy tone. (Ul
Mary was very much ae G ly
frightened. She began to VES, / in|
shudder from head to foot; i
and she was about to run a a aa i

 

 

 

 

 

 

away from the room, when
she beheld Godfather Dros- |
selmayer seated upon the clock iG
instead of the owl, the two |
skirts of his coat having taken | \
the place of the drooping || \
wings of the bird. At that |B Gsy)|
spectacle, Mary remained |
nailed as it were to the spot ~&! | I
with astonishment; and she | |
begaa to cry, saying, ‘‘ What Fl.
are you doing up there, Godpapa Drosselmayer? Come
down here, and don’t frighten me like that, naughty God-
papa Drosselmayer.”

But at these words there began a sharp whistling and
furious kind of tittering all around: then in a few moments
Mary heard thousands of little fect treading behind the
walls; and next she saw thousands of little lights through
the joints in the wainscot. When I say little lights, I am
wrong—lI mean thousands of little shining eyes. Mary full
well perceived that there was an entire population of mice
about to enter the room. And, in fact, in the course of five
minutes, thousands and thousands of mice made their ap-
pearance by the creases of the door and the joints of the
floor, and began to gallop hither and thither, until at length
they ranged themselves in order of battle, as Fritz was wont
to draw up his wooden soldiers. All this seemed very

i

 

 

 

1 i
l

 

 

 

=