20 THE HISTORY OF A NUT-CRACKER.

try, implored the king’s permission to profit by those three
days to visit Nuremberg once more.

This request seemed so just to the king, that he granted
it without any restriction.

Master Drosselmayer, having only three days left, re-
solved to profit by that time as much as possible; and, hav-
ing fortunately found that two places in the mail were
not taken, he secured them that moment.

 

Now, as the astrologer was himself condemned to banish-
ment, and as it was all the same to him which way he went,
he took his departure with the mechanician.

Next morning, at about ten o’clock, they were at Nurem-
berg. As Master Drosselmayer had only one relation in the
world, namely, his brother, Christopher Zacharias Drossel-
mayer, who kept one of the principal toy-shops in Nurem-
berg, it was at his house that he alighted.

Christopher Zacharias Drosselmayer was overjoyed to see
his poor brother Christian Elias, whom he had believed to be
dead. In the first instance he would not admit that the man
with the bald head and the black patch upon the eye was in
reality his brother; but the mechanician showed him his
famous drab surtout coat, which, all tattered as it was, had
retained in certain parts some traces of its original colour;
and in support of that first proof he mentioned so many
family secrets, unknown to all save to Zacharias and himself,
that the toy-merchant was compelled to yield to the evidence
brought forward. :