Tim Taler, or The Sold Laughter

Change your life in an instant... Forget all troubles, cope with challenges — and rush to happiness along the shortest and easiest path... This is what the orphan Tim Taler dreams of. Life with his stepmother and bothersome stepbrother is unbearable for him. Only the Sunday trips to the racetrack brighten the hero's weekdays.

It is there, in a most desperate mood, that the fourteen-year-old hero meets Baron Trötsch, who offers a magical escape from all woes. Tim Taler will win any bet — if he agrees to a symbolic exchange: the boy only needs to give Trötsch his laughter — only a true fool would refuse such a deal!..