One day she said to him: "A few pennies must be put by for Amanda."
That was the name of the little girl who flourished merrily in her
cradle. "You must assign some little profits to me."

"What can I do?" he asked. "For the present everything belongs to the
old man."

"I know what I'd like," she went on, smiling dreamily, "I'd like to
have all the profits on the sale of champagne."

He laughed heartily. There wasn't much call for champagne in the
little county-seat. At most a few bottles were sold on the emperor's
birthday or when, once in a long while, a flush commercial traveller
wanted to regale a recalcitrant customer.

And so Weigand fell in with what he thought a mere mood and assented.

Toni at once made a trip to Koenigsberg and bought all kinds of
phantastic decorations--Chinese lanterns, gilt fans, artificial
flowers, gay vases and manicoloured lamp-shades. With all these things
she adorned the little room that lay behind the room in which the most
distinguished townspeople were wont to drink their beer. And so the
place with veiled light and crimson glow looked more like a mysterious
oriental shrine than the sitting-room of an honest Prussian
inn-keeper's wife.

She sat evening after evening in this phantastic room. She brought her
knitting and awaited the things that were to come.