But I soon had to stop laughing when I saw Mister Carozo heading over very calmly to fetch his sleepy football to put her back into his little living room.
“Just one moment, Mister Carozo!” I called out to him.
“What’s the matter?” he replied, playing dumb.
“I’m very sorry to tell you,” I answered, “that the ball you’re carrying is no longer yours but mine, completely mine and so very much mine.”
“Supisichi,” he answered. “This ball is mine, completely mine and so very much mine and has been for a hundred and eighty-five years.”
“No, sir. Maybe because you’re a dwarf you have a very short memory, but let me remind you, sir, that you bet me that football, sir, and I won it from you fair and square, sir.”
“Me?” he asked, pretending to be shocked. “Me, bet my precious football? Me? Do my ears deceive me?”
I picked him up again, pushed aside his hat, lifted the hair of his sideburns a bit and yelled in his ear:
“Yes, sir, you bet me the football and you lost so I’m taking her away with me!”
“And what were we playing when I bet her?” he asked me, his eyes wide. “Were we playing ludo, hopscotch, dominoes, body-part tag, jacks?”
“No, sir,” I said, this time lifting the sideburn from his other ear, “you bet me because you thought Dailan Kifki was the person who murdered your living room, and the police investigation has shown that the poor creature was innocent.”
“Oh, by sampiolín,” he replied impatiently. “Put me down, I have a lot to do.”
“No, sir, there’s no way I’m putting you down,” I answered, still holding him up in the air, even though he was kicking his feet like crazy, his slippers spinning. I held him a bit farther away from me, but I did not put him back on the ground.
“The football is mine, so very much mine!” I insisted.
“Oh, and what do I care,” he said, at last. “Take your football. The Forest of Gulubú is full of footballs just as clever as that one.”
And so I put him down on the ground, and he ran into the house and quickly came back out with the football in his arms.
He gave her to me. But very unwillingly.