r door!'

"'That can't be done, dear Fritz,' answered Drosselmeier.

"'Well,' resumed Fritz, 'make that green man that looks out so often
walk about with the others.'

"'And that can't be done, either,' said his godpapa, once more.

"'Make the children come down, then,' said Fritz. 'I want to see them
nearer.'

"'Nonsense, nothing of that sort can be done,' cried Drosselmeier, with
impatience. 'The machinery must work as it's doing now; it can't be
altered, you know.'

"Oh,' said Fritz, 'it can't be done, eh? Very well, then, Godpapa
Drosselmeier, I'll tell you what it is. If your little creatures in the
castle there can only always do the same thing, they're not much worth,
and I think precious little of them! No, give me my hussars. They've
got to man[oe]uvre backwards and forwards just as I want them, and are
not fastened up in a house.'

"With which he made off to the other table, and set his squadron of
silver horse trotting here and there, wheeling and charging and
slashing right and left to his heart's content. Marie had slipped away
softly, too, for she was tired of the promenading and dancing of the
puppets in the castle, though, kind and gentle as she was, she did not
like to show it as her brother did. Drosselmeier, somewhat annoyed,
said to the parents--'After all, an ingenious piece of mechanism like
this is not a matter for children, who don't understand it; I shall put
my castle back in its box again.' But the mother came to the rescue,
and made him show her the clever machinery which moved the figures,
Drosselmeier taking it all to pieces, putting it together again, and
quite recovering his temper in the process. So that he gave the
children all sorts of delightful brown men and women with golden faces,
hands and legs, which were made of ginger cake, and with which they
were greatly content.

"MARIE'S PET AND PROTEGEE.

"But there was a reason wherefore Marie found it against the grain to
come away from the table where the Christmas presents were laid out;
and this was, that she had just noticed a something there which she had
not observed at first. Fritz's hussars having taken ground to the right
at some distance from the tree, in front of which they had previously
been paraded, there became visible a most delicious little man, who was
standing there quiet and unobtrusive, as if waiting patiently till it
should be his turn to be noticed. Objection, considerable object