Indeed, that poor thing was in a miserable condition enough. Neither Felix nor Christlieb had been paying any attention to her during their run, and so the bushes had torn all the clothes off her back, both her handsome legs were broken, and of the pretty waxen face there was scarcely a trace remaining, so marred and hideous did it appear.
"Oh, my poor, beautiful doll!" wept Christlieb.
"There, you see!" cried Felix; "those are the sort of trashy things those two stupid creatures brought and gave us. That doll of yours is nothing more or less than a stupid, idiotic slut. Can't so much as come for a little run with us but she must get her clothes all torn off her back, and herself spoilt and destroyed. Give me hold of her!"
Christlieb sorrowfully complied, and could scarcely restrain a cry of "Oh, oh!" as he chucked the doll, without more ado, into the pond.
"Never mind, dear!" Felix said, consoling his sister. "Never mind about the wretched thing. If I can only shoot a duck, you shall have all the beautiful wing feathers."
A rustle was heard amongst the rushes, and Felix instantly took aim with his wooden gun. But he moved it away from his shoulder speedily, saying--"Am I not a tremendous idiot myself?" Looking reflectively before him for a few minutes, he continued softly--
"How can a fellow shoot without powder and shot? And have I either the one or the other? And then, could I put powder into a wooden gun? What's the use, after all, of the stupid, wooden thing? And the hunting-knife! wooden, too. Can neither cut nor stab. Of course my cousin's sword was wooden as well! That was why he couldn't draw it when he was afraid of Sultan. I see what it all comes too. Cousin Pump-breeks was making a fool of me with his playthings, which only make-believe to be things, and are nothing but useless trumpery." With which Felix shied the gun, the hunting knife, and finally the sabretasche into the pond. But Christlieb was terribly distressed about her doll, and Felix himself couldn't help being annoyed at the way things had turned out. And in this mood of mind they crept back to the house; and when their mother asked them what had become of their playthings, Felix truthfully related how they had been deceived in the harper, the gun, the sabretasche, and the doll.
"Ah! you foolish children!" cried Frau von Brakel, half angry; "you don't know how to deal with nice toys of the kind."
But Baron Thaddeus, who had listened to Felix's tale with evident satisfaction, said, "Let the children alone; at the bottom, I am very glad they are fairly rid of those playthings. They didn't understand them, and were only bothered and vexed by them."
Neither Frau von Brakel nor the children understood what the Baron meant in so saying.