“The President!” said Mr. Thorpe.
They drank again, except the Fraulein, who disapproved of children being made much of, and only pretended to sip her wine.
“Bobby,” said his mother, with a catch in her voice, “haven’t you something to suggest—as a toast?”
Bobby’s eyes were on the cake; he came back with difficulty.
“Well,” he meditated, “I guess—would ‘Home’ be all right?”
“Home!” they all said, a little shakily, and drank to it.
Home! To the Thorpes, a little house on a shady street in America; to the Fraulein, a thatched cottage in the mountains of Germany and an old mother; to Pepy, the room in a tenement where she went at night; to Ferdinand William Otto, a formal suite of apartments in the Palace, surrounded by pomp, ordered by rule and precedent, hardened by military discipline, and unsoftened by family love, save for the grim affection of the old King.
Home!
After all, Pepy’s plan went astray, for the Fraulein got the china baby, and Ferdinand William Otto the Lincoln penny.
“That,” said Bobby’s father, “is a Lincoln penny, young man. It bears the portrait of Abraham Lincoln. Have you ever heard of him?”