The latter, approaching his uncle with clear signs that he wanted him for something, had pulled him aside.
"I want to ask you for something," said Bruno. "I wonder if you will do me a great favor, Uncle Philip. Salo and I have so much to talk about still and he must leave to-morrow, I wanted to ask you if Kurt can sleep beside you in the guest room and Salo could sleep in Kurt's bed in my room."
"What are you thinking of," the uncle said irritably. "You should hear what your mother would say to that. The idea of having a Wallerstätten for a guest and offering him a bed which has been used already. That would seem a real crime in her eyes. That can't be; no, it mustn't. I hope you can see it, too, don't you?"
"Yes," Bruno said, much depressed, for he had to agree. But Uncle could not stand such downcast spirits.
"Listen, Bruno," he said, "you realize that we can't do it that way. But an uncle knows how to arrange things and that is why he is here. This is the way we'll do. I'll sleep in your bed, and Salo and you can sleep in the guest-room. Will that suit?"
"Oh, thank you, Uncle Philip! There is no other uncle like you," Bruno cried out in his enthusiasm.
So Uncle Philip's last difficulty was solved for to-day and everybody was willing to go to bed. Soon the house lay in deep quiet: even the sick child in the highest story lay calmly sleeping on her cool pillows. She did not even notice when Mrs. Maxa stepped up once more to her bedside with a little lamp. Before herself retiring she wanted to listen once more to the child's breathing. Only the two new friends were still talking long after midnight.
They understood each other so thoroughly and upon all points that Bruno had proposed in his enthusiasm that they would not waste one minute of the night in sleep. Salo expressed his wish over and over again that Bruno might become his comrade in the boarding school. But finally victorious sleep stole unperceived over the two lads and quietly closed their eyes.