THE HISTORY OF A NUT-CRACKER. 15

day especially had dined splendidly upon his two favourite
dishes—namely, liver soup and black puddings—lent a fa-
vourable ear to the prayer of his wise and courageous queen.
He therefore decided that the astrologer and the mechanician
should that moment set out in search of the nut and the
nut-cracker ; for which purpose he granted fourteen years
and nine months, with the condition that they should
return, at the expiration of that reprieve, to place them-
selves in his power, so that, if they were empty-handed,
he might deal with them according to his own royal pleasure.

If, on the contrary, they should
make their re-appearance with the
Crackatook nut which was to re-
store the princess to all her former
beauty, the astrologer would be re-
warded with a yearly pension of
six hundred pounds and a telescope
of honour; and the mechanician
would receive a sword set with dia-
monds, the Order of the Golden
Spider (the grand order of the
_ State), and a new frock-coat.

As for the young man who was
to crack the nut, the king had no
doubt of being able to find one
suitable for the purpose, by means
of advertisements constantly inserted in the national and
foreign newspapers. .

Touched by this declaration on the part of the King,
which relieved them from half the difficulty of their task,
Christian Elias Drosselmayer pledged his honour that he
would either find the Crackatook-nut, or return, like another
Regulus, to place himself in the hands of the king.

That same evening the astrologer and the mechanician
departed from the capital of the kingdom to commence their
researches.