"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.