“Oh—­dear—­dear,” sobbed little Hannah with the tears rolling down, “we thought it was a piano!’

“Did I say it was a piano?” Max howled.

“You said it—­it—­was—­was—­covered with pl—­plush,” Liseke sobbed.

“Well, isn’t it?”

“And—­and you said it ’ud make a noise if one b—­banged on it,” Hannah cried, piteously.

“Well, see if it don’t!” Max shrieked, when papa Karl’s hand came down upon him with such superb effect there was no doubting the truth of the assertion.

“Ungrateful children, you are never satisfied,” papa Karl cried majestically.  “No matter what I do for you, you’re always ungrateful—­”

[Illustration:  THE SHAMEFULLY NEGLECTED SIX.]

“But Karl,” mamma Betty interrupted, with quiet decision, in the midst of a storm of sobs, “you can’t expect the children to be very much delighted because Max gets a new suit—­something necessary.”

“And it’s so tight I can’t breathe,” Max cried, goaded to frenzy by the general grief.

“Ingrates!” gasped papa Karl, and strode up and down the room, while Liseke sobbed her grief out on mamma’s shoulder, and Max hid his face in her lap, and Hannah was bravely trying to dry her brown eyes.

“Karl, they are children,” mamma Betty said:  softly patting Max’s head; then lifting it up gently; “Max, go to the confectioners.”  Max sprang to his feet as a war-horse at the sound of a trumpet.

“Here are ten groschens;”—­mamma Betty took them out of her scanty purse with something of a sigh;—­“buy as much cake and whatever you like.  Liseke tell Marie to make a pitcher of chocolate instantly.  My little Hannah, you may set the table.”

“Oh, mamma, may I put on the pretty china cups and saucers?” Hannah pleaded, as Max and Liseke bounded out of the room.

“Yes, but be careful, my dear.”

“Chocolate!” said papa Karl with some scorn, “bribing them for the sake of peace.”

They were children, she said.  Had papa Karl forgotten that he, too, had once been a child?

Papa Karl had forgotten this trifling circumstance but he magnanimously declared he forgave them all.

There was a pattering of feet down the entry, and three tear-stained faces looked timidly in.

“The chocolate is on the table,” Hannah said bravely, with only one tiny sob.  Then the door closed and the little feet patted down the corridor.

“Come Karl, and drink a cup of chocolate.  You need it as much as the children, for you were disappointed also.  You thought to give them a pleasure, you mistaken man,” mamma Betty said with a little smile.

“I really meant to,” said Karl, quite softened.

Mamma Betty was just opening the door, when she suddenly paused.

“Karl,” she said quite seriously, “will you promise me one thing?”

“Yes, my dear.”

“Never surprise us again; surprises always end in disappointments.”