They would
have made it sing the tune thirty-four times,
but the Emperor said, "I should like to
hear the real Nightingale sing, now."
But when they looked about for the real
little Nightingale, they could not find her
anywhere! She had taken the chance,
while everybody was listening to the waltz
tunes, to fly away through the window to
her own greenwood.
"What a very ungrateful bird!" said the
lords and ladies. "But it does not matter;
the new nightingale is just as good."
So the artificial nightingale was given
the real Nightingale's little gold perch, and
every night the Emperor wound her up,
and she sang waltz tunes to him. The
people in the court liked her even better
than the old Nightingale, because they
could all whistle her tunes,--which you
can't do with real nightingales.
About a year after the artificial nightingale
came, the Emperor was listening to
her waltz-tune, when there was a SNAP
and WHIR-R-R inside the bird, and the music
stopped. The Emperor ran to his doctor
but he could not do anything. Then he
ran to his clock-maker, but he could not
do much. Nobody could do much. The
best they could do was to patch the gold
nightingale up so that it could sing once
a year; even that was almost too much,
and the tune was pretty shaky. Still, the
Emperor kept the gold nightingale on the
perch in his own room.
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