“My brave Fido,” said the Fairy to the Bearded Dog, “go quickly, hitch up the most beautiful carriage in my stables and take the road to the forest. When you arrive under the Grand Oak you will find stretched out on the ground a poor marionette, half dead. Take him up carefully and bring him here. Do you understand?”
The Bearded Dog, in order to make himself understood, shook the cover to his tail three or four times and departed in a flash. A little while afterward a beautiful transparent carriage, all trimmed with canary-bird feathers and lined inside with cream-colored cloth, was seen to come from the stables. It was drawn by one hundred pairs of white mice and the Bearded Dog sat on the box and cracked his whip from right to left as a coachman always does when he fears he shall be late.
A quarter of an hour had hardly passed when the carriage returned. The Fairy, who waited at the door, took the marionette in her arms and carried him to a little bed of mother-of-pearl, which she had prepared for him. Then she sent immediately for three doctors. They soon arrived, one after the other. They were a Crow, an Owl, and a Talking Cricket.
“I should like to know from you, gentlemen,” said the Fairy, turning to the three doctors who
