“I ’pects I’ll have an awful good dinner waitin’ for us, too, when we get home,” said Budge; “’cause that’s the way the papa in the Bible did, an’ yet he had only one boy come home instead of two, an’ he’d been bad.”
“What portion of the Scriptural narrative is that child running into now?” asked Mrs. Burton.
“Aunt Alice don’t know who you’re talking about, Budge,” said Mr. Burton. “Explain it to her.”
“Why, that boy that his papa made a dinner out of fat veal for,” said Budge; “though I never could see how that was a very nice dinner.”
“Worse and worse,” sighed Mrs. Burton.
“Tell us all about it, old fellow,” said Mr. Burton. “We don’t know what you’re driving at.”
“Why,” exclaimed Budge, “are you bad folks that don’t read your Bible-books? I thought everybody knew about him. Why, he was a boy that went to his papa one day and told him that whatever he was goin’ to give him as long as he lived, he wished he’d give it to him all at once. An’ his papa did. Wasn’t he a lovely papa, though? So the boy took the money, an’ went travelin’, an’ had larks. There’s a picture about it all in Tommy Bryan’ mamma’s parlor, but I don’t think it’s very larkey; he’s just a-sittin’ down with a whole lot of women actin’ like geese all around him. But he had to pay money to have larks, an’ he had such lots of ’em that pretty soon he didn’t have no money. Say, Uncle Harry, why don’t people have all the money they want?”
“That’s the world’s prize conundrum,” said Mr. Burton. “Ask me something easier.”
“I’m goin’ to have all the money I wantsh when I gets growed,” said Toddie.
“How are you going to get it?” asked his uncle, with natural interest.