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Mike and I picked up our things from the store and waved goodbye to Mrs. Martin. We went back to the park, to the same picnic bench, and spent several more hours thinking and talking.
我和迈克收拾好东西与马丁太太道了别。我们走回公园，又坐到那张长椅上，花了几个小时考虑和讨论富爸爸的话。
We spent the next week at school thinking and talking, too. For two more weeks, we kept thinking, talking, and working for free.
在接下来的一个星期里，我和迈克一直在思考和讨论这些问题。又过了两个星期，我们仍旧在思考、讨论，同时免费为富爸爸工作。
At the end of the second Saturday, I was again saying goodbye to Mrs. Martin and looking at the comic-book stand with a longing gaze. The hard thing about not even getting 30 cents every Saturday was that I didn’t have any money to buy comic books. Suddenly, as Mrs. Martin said goodbye to Mike and me, I saw her do something I’d never seen her do before.
在第二个星期六工作结束时，我向马丁太太道别，依依不舍地看着架子上的连环画。每星期六没有了30美分的收入，我就没有钱去买连环画了。而就在马丁太太和我们说再见时，她做了一件我以前从未见她做过的事，我的意思是我以前也见她这样做过，只是我没太在意。
Mrs. Martin was cutting the front page of the comic book in half. She kept the top half of the comic book cover and threw the rest of the book into a large cardboard box. When I asked her what she did with the comic books, she said, “I throw them away. I give the top half of the cover back to the comic-book distributor for credit when he brings in the new comics. He’s coming in an hour.”
马丁太太把连环画的封面撕成两半，然后把上面一半留下，下面一半扔进了棕色的书橱。我问她这是做什么，她说：“我要把这些没有卖掉的旧书扔掉。等书商送新书来，我会把这半边封面交给他，作为没有卖掉的证明。他一小时后就到。”
Mike and I waited for an hour. Soon the distributor arrived, and I asked him if we could have the comic books. To my delight, he said, “You can have them if you work for this store and do not resell them.”
我和迈克等了一个小时，书商终于来了。我问他能否把那些他不要的连环画送给我们。他回答：“如果你们在这家店干活，而且保证不把它们卖掉，我就送给你们。”
Remember our old business partnership? Well, Mike and I revived it. Using a spare room in Mike’s basement, we began piling hundreds of comic books in that room. Soon our comic-book library was open to the public. We hired Mike’s younger sister, who loved to study, to be head librarian. She charged each child 10 cents admission to the library, which was open from 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. every day after school. The customers, the children of the neighborhood, could read as many comics as they wanted in two hours. It was a bargain for them since a comic cost 10 cents each, and they could read five or six in two hours.
于是，我们成交了。迈克家的地下室里有个空房间，我们把它清理出来，把几百本连环画搬了进去。很快我们的连环画阅览室就开始营业了。我们雇了迈克的妹妹——她很爱读书——来做图书管理员。她向每个来阅览室看书的孩子收10美分，每天从下午2点30分到4点30分，阅览室都会开放。读者呢，包括邻家的孩子，他们可以在这两个小时内看个够。对于他们来说这是相当便宜的，因为10美分只能买1本连环画，而两小时足够他们看五六本了。
Mike’s sister would check the kids as they left to make sure they weren’t borrowing any comic books. She also kept the books, logging in how many kids showed up each day, who they were, and any comments they might have. Mike and I averaged $9.50 per week over a three-month period. We paid his sister one dollar a week and allowed her to read the comics for free, which she rarely did since she was always studying.
迈克的妹妹在读者离开时要负责检查，确保他们不把书带走。她还要保管书，记录每天有多少人来、他们的名字以及他们有什么意见。我和迈克在以后三个月里平均每星期能赚9.5美元，我们付给迈克的妹妹1美元，而且允许她免费看书，但她很少看，因为她总是在学习。
Mike and I kept our agreement by working in the store every Saturday and collecting all the comic books from the different stores. We kept our agreement to the distributor by not selling any comic books. We burned them once they got too tattered. We tried opening a branch office, but we could never quite find someone as trustworthy and dedicated as Mike’s sister. At an early age, we found out how hard it was to find good staff.
我和迈克仍然每星期六去小店干活，从各个店收集卖不出去的连环画。我们恪守了对书商的诺言，没有卖一本连环画，如果书太破了我们就烧掉。我们想开一家分店，但实在找不到一个像迈克的妹妹那样尽职尽责、值得信任的管理员。小小年纪，我们就已经发现找个好职员有多么困难了。
Three months after the library first opened, a fight broke out in the room. Some bullies from another neighborhood pushed their way in, and Mike’s dad suggested we shut down the business. So our comic-book business shut down, and we stopped working on Saturdays at the convenience store. But rich dad was excited because he had new things he wanted to teach us. He was happy because we had learned our first lesson so well: We learned to make money work for us. By not getting paid for our work at the store, we were forced to use our imaginations to identify an opportunity to make money. By starting our own business, the comic-book library, we were in control of our own finances, not dependent on an employer. The best part was that our business generated money for us, even when we weren’t physically there. Our money worked for us.
阅览室开张3个月后，发生了一场争斗，附近的小流氓盯上了这桩生意。富爸爸建议我们关门，所以我们的连环画生意就此结束了，同时我们也不去小店工作了。不管怎样，富爸爸十分兴奋，因为他可以教我们新东西了。他很欣慰，因为我们的第一课学得这么好。我们已经学会怎样让钱为我所用了。由于没有从小店的工作中得到报酬，我们就不得不发挥想象力去寻找挣钱的机会。通过经营我们自己的连环画阅览室，我们就掌控了自己的财务，而不是依赖雇主。最棒的是我们的生意让我们赚了钱，甚至当我们不在那儿时，它也照样赚钱，我们的钱为我们工作了。
Instead of paying us money, rich dad had given us so much more.
虽然富爸爸没有付给我们工钱，却给了我们更多的东西。
