r fell asleep feeling good, expecting soon to have a
good conscience over his little theft and hoping that Cecilia would
give him a happy heart.

Alas, alas! Little Walter had made his calculations without taking into
consideration the slyness and respectability of the Hallemans. They
lay in wait for him the next day as he came from school. Walter,
who had painted to himself how they would be panting under the
weight of the great sack; Walter, who was so anxious to know if
Christian Kloskamp had taken what he had ordered; Walter, who was
burning with curiosity as to the success of the venture--oh, he was
bitterly disappointed. Gustave Halleman not only carried no sack of
peppermints. What's more, he had a very grave face. And little Franz
looked like virtue itself.

"Well, how is everything?" Walter asked, but without saying a word. He
was too curious not to ask, and too fearful to express the question
otherwise than by opening his mouth and poking out his face.

"Don't you know, Walter, we've been thinking about the matter; and
there's a lot to be said against the plan."

Poor Walter! In that moment both his heart and his conscience suffered
shipwreck. Away with your dreams of ethical vindication, away with
the gaping money-boxes of mothers--away, lead pencil that was to
bore a hole in the hard heart of the tall Cecilia--gone, gone, gone,
everything lost.

"You see, Walter, the mint-drops might melt."

"Y-e-s," sobbed Walter.

"And Christian Kloskamp, who ordered twelve--don't you know----"

"Y-e-s."

I wonder if Christian was likely to melt too.

"He is leaving school, and will certainly not return after the
holidays."

"H-e-e i-i-s?"

"Yes, and for that reason, and also because there are not anything like
so many to the pound as we had thought. Mint-drops are heavy. We've
calculated everything, Franz and I."

"Yes," added little Franz, with the seriousness of one giving
important advice in a time of great danger, "the things are very
heavy at present. Feel this one; but you must give it back to me."

Walter weighed the mint-drop on his finger and returned it
conscientiously.

He found it heavy. Ah, in this moment he was so depressed that he
would have found everything heavy.

Franz stuck the piece of candy into his mouth, and sucking at it
continued:

"Yes, really, very heavy. These are the English drops, you know. And
then there is something else, too, isn't there, Gustave? The propriety,
th