It has been decreed in the council that my little boy shall have a weekly income of one cent. Every Sunday morning, that sum shall be paid to him, free of income-tax, out of the and he has leave to dispose of it at his own pleasure.  
He receives this announcement with composure and sits apart for a while and ponders on it.
 
"Every Sunday?" he asks.
 
"Every Sunday."
 
"All the time till the summer holidays?"
 
"All the time till the summer holidays."
 
In the summer holidays, he is to go to the country, to stay with his godmother, in whose house he was pleased to allow himself to be born. The summer holidays are, consequently, the limits of his calculation of time: beyond them lies, for the moment, his Nirvana.
 
And we employ this restricted horizon of ours to further our true happiness.
 
That is to say, we calculate, with the aid of the almanac, that, if everything goes as heretofore, there will be fifteen Sundays before the summer holidays. We arrange a drawer with fifteen and in each we put one cent. Thus we know exactly what we have and are able at any time to survey our financial status.
 
And, when he sees that great lot of cents lying there, my little boy's breast is filled with mad delight. He feels endlessly rich, safe for a long time. The courtyard rings with his , with all that he is going to do with his money. His special favourites are invited to come up and view his treasure.
 
The first Sunday passes in a normal fashion, as was to be expected.
 
He takes his cent and turns it straightway into a stick of chocolate of the best sort, with almonds on it and sugar, in short, an ideal stick in every way. The whole performance is over in five minutes: by that time, the stick of chocolate is gone, with the sole exception of a remnant in the corners of our mouth, which our ruthless mother wipes away, and a stain on our collar, which annoys us.
 
He sits by me, with a vacant little face, and swings his legs. I open the drawer and look at the empty space and at the fourteen others:
 
"So that's gone," I say.
 
My accent betrays a certain , which finds an echo in his breast. But he does not deliver himself of it at once.
 
"Father . . . is it long till next Sunday?"
 
"Very long, my boy; ever so many days."
 
We sit a little, steeped in our own thoughts. Then I say, :
 
"Now, if you had bought a top, you would perhaps have had more pleasure out of it. I know a place where there is a lovely top: red, with a green ring round it. It is just over the way, in the toy-shop. I saw it yesterday. I should be greatly mistaken if the toy-man was not willing to sell it for a cent. And you've got a whip, you know."
 
We go over the way and look at the top in the shop-window. It is really a splendid top.
 
"The shop's shut," says my little boy, .
 
I look at him with surprise:
 
"Yes, but what does that matter to us? Anyway, we can't buy the top before next Sunday. You see, you've spent your cent on chocolate. Give me your handkerchief: there's still a bit on your cheek."
 
There is no more to be said. and pensively, we go home. We sit a long time at the dining-room window, from which we can see the window of the shop.
 
During the course of the week, we look at the top daily, for it does not do to let one's love grow cold. One might so easily forget it. And the top shines always more seductively. We go in and make sure that the price is really in keeping with our means. We make the shop-keeper take a solemn oath to keep the top for us till Sunday morning, even if boys should come and bid him much higher sums for it.
 
On Sunday morning, we are on the spot before nine o'clock and acquire our treasure with trembling hands. And we play with it all day and sleep with it at night, until, on Wednesday morning, it disappears without a trace, after the nasty manner which tops have.
 
When the turn comes of the next cent, something happens.
 
There is a boy in the courtyard who has a skipping-rope and my little boy, therefore, wants to have a skipping-rope too. But this is a difficult matter. Careful enquiries establish the fact that a skipping-rope of the sort used by the upper classes is nowhere............