"Aren't you ashamed of yourself, Nikolai, behaving like that to the Consul's children! You'd better try it on! There Ludvig--there, there, Lizzie--he shan't hurt you! Just do what they want, do you hear, Nikolai!" And then Barbara had to lament over Ludvig's starched collar, which had got crumpled.
"Come here, my precious boy.

Come now, and then you shall play again directly." She took him up on her knee.

"It's my own precious boy, it is, who's so good! There, hold his blouse, Nikolai, and you shall see such a fine boy, and so good, so good!" "Show him my Sunday clothes, Barbara, and the patent leather shoes!" And Nikolai was allowed to look into the drawers at all Ludvig's and Lizzie's dresses and sashes and fine underclothes, and to peep into the toy-cupboard to be bewildered by all the old drums and trumpets and headless men and horses, and tin soldiers, and Noah's arks, with their belongings, all of which, Barbara said, they had been given because they were so good.
There was a pile of things in the lower part of the cupboard, so that Nikolai could understand that they must have been very, very good, and that his mother, too--and at this he felt a bitter disappointment--must, in return, be very, very fond of them.

They must be very different children to what he was, if they never deserved a whipping, but always playthings.

He became quite tired and downcast, as he stood there.