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 for a long time looking at Barka with wide eyes and open mouth. He evaded giving a direct reply by expressing the wish that he might some day have so much money that at every step it would jingle in his pocket.

“It will all come to you,” Barka encouraged him.

“Oh, no, it won’t,” complained Matýsek, but at the same time he wanted Barka to assure him again.

“Yes, indeed, it will come,” she reiterated. “Isn’t it already beginning for you? It is commencing for me, too. We have quite a bit of money out among people, and if we are alive and well, we can get the good of it.”

“Where did you say we had money?”

“Why, at our masters’. If we have health and serve them for twenty years yet, no mere hundred will cover what they owe us. Just count it up!”

“Wait,” pouted Matýsek. “You’re making sport of me.” But he couldn’t frown very long and had to smile a little at least at the way in which Barka had turned the matter. It seemed as if she were poking fun at him and yet what she said was true. And, indeed, taken all around, Barka was right. Seeing that he was prepared to smile, Barka began to laugh also and Matýsek joined in heartily, while they figured how much money they had out among people and how rich they were.

But in the midst of her laughter, Barkas eyes filled with tears.