Eighteenth Chapter Can Anything Be Learned from It All?

Late in the afternoon the boys departed. And Emil had to promise solemnly to go to the Professor’s with Pony Hütchen the very next afternoon. Then Uncle Heimbold came in, and they had supper. After which he gave the thousand marks to his sister-in-law, Frau Tischbein, and advised her to put the money in the bank.

“That was just my intention,” said the hairdresser.

“No,” objected Emil, “that wouldn’t be any fun for me. Mother must buy an electric drying machine and a new coat that’s lined with fur. I don’t know what you’re thinking about. That money belongs to me. Can I do what I want with it or not?”

“That you certainly cannot,” declared Uncle Heimbold. “You are only a child. And the decision as to what is to be done with the money rests with your mother.”

Emil got up from the table and went over to the window.

“Good gracious, Heimbold, you are a blockhead!” said Pony Hütchen to her father. “Can’t you see that Emil was glad that he could give something to his mother? You grown-ups are dumb.”

“Of course, she’ll get the drying machine and the coat,” soothed the grandmother. “But what’s left over can be put in the bank, can’t it, my boy?”

“Of course,” agreed Emil. “Do you say so too, Mummy?”

“If you want it that way, you young millionaire.”

“We’ll go shopping early to-morrow,” cried Emil. “Pony, you can come with us.”

“Did you think, perhaps, that I’d be catching flies in the meantime?” laughed Pony. “But you must buy something for yourself, too. Of course, Aunt Tischbein must get her drying machine, but you must buy yourself a bicycle, so that you won’t have to ride your cousin’s bicycle to pieces.”

“Emil,” inquired his mother anxiously, “have you broken your cousin’s wheel?”

“Of course not, Mother, I only raised the handlebars a little bit higher. She always goes around bent way over like a monkey so she’ll look like a racer.”

“Monkey yourself!” cried Pony. “If you change my wheel again everything’s off between us, you understand?”

“If you weren’t a girl and thin as a stick besides I’d teach you a few things, my child. Anyway, I won’t bother myself about it to-day, but what I buy with the money or what I don’t buy is none of your business.” And Emil stuffed both fists in his pockets.

“Don’t quarrel, don’t strike, scratch each other’s eyes out instead,” called the grandmother soothingly, and the subject was dropped.

Later Uncle Heimbold took the dog out for an airing. That is—Heimbolds had no dog, but Pony always said that when her father went out to get his evening glass of beer.

The grandmother and the two women and Pony Hütchen and Emil sat in the living room and talked over the past few days, which had been so exciting.

“Well, perhaps the affair has its good points, too,” said Aunt Martha.

“Sure it has,” agreed Emil. “One lesson I’ve learned from it—Never trust anybody.”

And his mother added, “I have learned that you should never let children travel alone.”

“Nonsense,” muttered the grandmother, “all wrong, all wrong.”

“Nonsense! Nonsense! Nonsense!” sang Pony as she rode a chair around the room.

“You think, then, that we can’t learn anything from this experience?” inquired Aunt Martha.

“Certainly,” answered the grandmother.

“What, then?” they all asked in one breath.

“Never send cash, always send a money order,” growled the grandmother, and chuckled like a music box.

“Hurrah!” cried Pony Hütchen, and she rode her chair into the bedroom.

THE END