THE NEXT MORNING, her face tear-stained, Susi wakes Max while he was still in the middle of his most beautiful sleep.

Sitting on the side of his bed, she whispers heartbreakingly: “Oh, Max!,” and again the tears start to flow down her crumpled face.

“What's wrong, little Susi? What kind of hopes have you had dashed? Even last night you seemed so quiet.”

And now Max can learns the upsetting story of how Uncle Otto was arrested.

“Why?” asked an astonished Max, “Did he do some shady deals?” After all he's heard from Susi about her Otto, he can't imagine that.

“No!,” Susi cries, “It has to do with the taxes. He was suddenly required to pay a tax that wasn't due yet. He’d been telling me about it, but I never got the details because it was too complicated. All I really understood is that he has to pay taxes that are too high for his current income.”

“Then he should have filed an official objection.”

“Yes, exactly, Max. He did that, and his case is still pending before the, I’m not sure what it's called, either the Finance or Revisions Bureau. He has expenses, you know? And they have to be deducted. So now they’ve decided, probably because they need tax revenue like never before, that maybe the expenses were for the business, but it's also possible that they went to cover the extravagances of his personal life, which they claimed would make sense given his station in life. Ergo, it was decided that he has to continue to pay his taxes at the old rate. Another appeal would be difficult because the expenses were for foreign travel.”

“But Otto was never out of the country for long. Anyone who travels abroad for pleasure stays longer than three days. That alone should show that he was on business,” objected Max.

“Of course he only took business trips. He was always happy to be home so he could be sure that nothing was going wrong. He hasn't taken a private trip in three years. He hasn't even allowed himself a vacation in three years. I got angry about that more than I want to think about.