60 THE HISTORY OF A NUT-CRACKER.

““Do you know, Godpapa Drosselmayer,” said Fritz,

“that you are uncommonly amusing to-day: you seem to

 

move about just like my punch that stands behind the store;
and, as for the song, it 1s not common sense.”

But the judge’s wife looked severe.

“‘ My dear doctor,” she said, ‘‘ your song is indeed very
strange, and appears to me to be only calculated to make
little Mary worse.”

‘‘Nonsense!” cried Godfather Drosselmayer: ‘“‘do you
not recognise the old chant which I am in the habit of hum-
ming when IJ mend your clocks?”

At the same time he seated himself near Mary’s bed, and
said to her in a rapid tone, “ Do not be angry with me, my
dear child, because I did not tear out the fourteen eyes of the
king of the mice with my own hands; but I knew what I
was about—and now, as I am anxious to make it up with
you, I will tell you a story.”

‘What story ?” asked Mary.

“The History of the Crackatook Nut and Princess
Pirlipata. Do you know it?”

‘No, my dear godpapa,” replied Mary, whom the offer
of a story reconciled to the doctor that moment. ‘Go on.”