The refund by Fritz Karinthy summary

 The play refund is full of humor which deals with an extraordinarily ludicrous situation. The main character in the play is Wasserkopf. He is forty years old. He could not get any employment and wherever he went the people told him that he is fit for nothing and nothing worth while he has learnt when he was studying.

One day he met a Lederer and asked him about his business. When the Lederer told him about foreign exchange and Hungarian money, he was not able to understand anything and started asking questions about foreign exchange to the Lederer.

For which the Lederer said when you don’t know the silly thing what have you studied, you better go to your school and get your tuition fees back.

Wasserkopf who was jobless and didn’t have any finance, this idea sounded something beneficial to him and so he went to the school where he studied once.

When he asks for the refund of his tuition fees, the principal is shocked because after eighteen years he has come to the school thinking that he has learnt nothing worthwhile and so he can get his tuition fees back. The principal is in a peculiar situation now and he calls for an urgent meeting with all other staff members. They decided to keep a re-examination for Wasserkopf and agreed that whatever answers he gives weather it is right or wrong they will prove him right. One by one each teacher questions him and justified his wrong answer to be correct one and they mark him excellent. Though Wasserkopf gives wrong answers and use abuse words to each teacher, they don’t show their anger because they have to prove him as an excellent student to chuck him out.

At least the mathematics master asks him a difficult question and an easy question. For the easy question he gives wrong answer and the master gets angry and says that he has failed on his examination so he should be given his tuition fees back. The master says that we have decided to give you your tuition fees back and now can you tell as the exact amount which we have to give you. Wasserkopf without knowing that he is going to fall into their trap gives them the list of exact amount. So the mathematics master says that was my difficult question to give the exact amount of your tuition fees for which you gave the right answer.

Now he is proved excellent in the entire subject and they throw him out without allowing him to say anything further. The play is full of humor and full of ludicrous situation. It also shows the ability of the teachers to manage the situation and how they tackle Wasserkopf without spoiling the reputation of their school.