“Wasn’t that Sammy Davis in here?” asked the cook. “You two boys were up to something, I know.”
His pretty room was a thing of the past—completely burnt out. The walls were black. A few charred rags had once been window curtains. A sodden rag underfoot was his rug. The closet was burned through. Blackened shreds of garments hung on the nails. Wendell’s desk was but charred timbers. His books were paper ashes.
“I know why Wendell looks so woe-begone!” said Cousin Virginia. “His school books are burned.”
“Don’t worry, dear,” said his mother. “Everything is covered by insurance. You wanted your room re-decorated, you know, and it is easy to replace the clothes and books.”
Ah, yes, but who could replace the Cloak of Darkness? Who could restore the Cap of Thought? What insurance would cover the Book of Spells? Wendell was doomed once more to the drudgery of other mortals, to learning his lessons like other boys, to plodding his toilsome way through college, to making his own business success, unaided by the great minds of the world’s financiers. No wonder he stood there glum and almost tearful amid the blackened ruins of his room and of his future.
Then suddenly, as he stood by the window, his eyes fell upon the street below and the crowd of neighbor boys still lingering about the scene of the fire, and upon the stone post that stood at the entrance to the court over the way. And his eyes brightened to something like happy anticipation as he said under his breath,
“Well, anyway, I have one wish left on the Wishing Stone.”