"Yes, but what does that matter to us? Anyway, we can't buy the top
before next Sunday. You see, you've spent your cent on chocolate. Give
me your handkerchief: there's still a bit on your cheek."
There is no more to be said. Crestfallen and pensively, we go home. We
sit a long time at the dining-room window, from which we can see the
window of the shop.
During the course of the week, we look at the top daily, for it does not
do to let one's love grow cold. One might so easily forget it. And the
top shines always more seductively. We go in and make sure that the
price is really in keeping with our means. We make the shop-keeper take
a solemn oath to keep the top for us till Sunday morning, even if boys
should come and bid him much higher sums for it.
On Sunday morning, we are on the spot before nine o'clock and acquire
our treasure with trembling hands. And we play with it all day and sleep
with it at night, until, on Wednesday morning, it disappears without a
trace, after the nasty manner which tops have.
When the turn comes of the next cent, something remarkable happens.
There is a boy in the courtyard who has a skipping-rope and my little
boy, therefore, wants to have a skipping-rope too. But this is a
difficult matter. Careful enquiries establish the fact that a
skipping-rope of the sort used by the upper classes is nowhere to be
obtained for less than five cents.
The business is discussed as early as Saturday:
"It's the simplest thing in the world," I say. "You must not spend your
cent tomorrow. Next Sunday you must do the same and the next and the
next. On the Sunday after that, you will have saved your five cents and
can buy your skipping-rope at once."
"When shall I get my skipping-rope then?"
"In five Sundays from now."
He says nothing, but I can see that he does not think my idea very
brilliant. In the course of the day, he derives, from sources unknown
to me, an acquaintance with financial circumstances which he serves up
to me on Sunday morning in the following words:
"Father, you must lend me five cents for the skipping-rope. If you will
lend me five cents for the skipping-rope, I'll give you _forty_ cents
back. . . ."
He stands close to me, very red in the face and quite confused. I
perceive that he is ripe for falling into the claws of the usurers:
"I don't do that sort of business, my boy," I say. "It wouldn't do you
any good either. And you're not even in a position to do it, for you
have only thirteen cents, as you know."
He collapses like one whose last hope is gone.
"Let us just see," I say.
And we go to our drawer and stare at it long and deeply.
"We might perhaps manage it this way, that I give you five cents now.
And then I should have your cent and the next four cents. . . ."
He interrupts me with a loud shout. I take out my purse, give him five
cents and take one cent out of the drawer:
"That won't be pleasant next Sunday," I say, "and the next and the next
and the next. . . ."
But the thoughtless youth is gone.
Of course, the instalments of his debt are paid off with great ceremony.
He is always on the spot himself when the drawer is opened and sees how
the requisite cent is removed and finds its way into my pocket instead
of his.
The first time, all goes well. It is simply an amusing thing that I
should have the cent; and the skipping-rope is still fresh in his
memory, because of the pangs which he underwent before its purchase.
Next Sunday, already the thing is not _quite_ so pleasant and, when the
fourth instalment falls due, my little boy's face looks very gloomy:
"Is anything the matter?" I ask.
"I should so much like a stick of chocolate," he says, without looking
at me.
"Is that all? You can get one in a fortnight. By that time, you will
have paid for the skipping-rope and the cent will be your own again."
"I should so much like to have the stick of chocolate now."
Of course, I am full of the sincerest compassion, but I can't help it.
What's gone is gone. We saw it with our own eyes and we know exactly
where it has gone to. And, that Sunday morning, we part in a dejected
mood.
Later in the day, however, I find him standing over the drawer with
raised eyebrows and a pursed-up mouth. I sit down quietly and wait. And
I do not have to wait long before I learn that his development as an
economist is taking quite its normal course.
"Father, suppose we moved the cent now from here into this Sunday's
place and I took it and bought the chocolate-stick. . . ."
"Why, then you won't have your cent for the other Sunday."
"I don't mind that, Father. . . ."
We talk about it, and then we do it. And, with that, as a matter of
course, we enter upon the most reckless peculations.
The very next Sunday, he is clever enough to take the furthest cent,
which lies just before the summer holidays. He pursues the path of vice
without a scruple, until, at last, the blow falls and five long Sundays
come in a row without the least chance of a cent.
Where should they come from? They were there. We know that. They are
gone. We have spent them ourselves.
But, during those drab days of poverty, we sit every morning over the
empty drawer and talk long and profoundly about that painful phenomenon,
which is so simple and so easy to understand and which one must needs
make the best of.
And we hope and trust that our experience will do us good, when, after
our trip, we start a new set of cents.