This story, as I understand it, is about a little boy with some extra money. He decided that it would be a good day to have ice cream at the diner where his parents took him.
As he climbed up on the stool at the counter, he asked the waitress how much the banana split costs. She told him it would be 50 cents.
A crowd of customers began to enter the diner while he slowly counted the money in his pocket and finally asked: “How much for just plain ice cream?”
The waitress was growing impatient with the lad and said “35 cents … What’ll it be?”
“I’ll have the plain ice cream then.”
The waitress rushed to serve the ice cream, gave him the bill, took his 35 cents and did not check on him again. After he had left, she went to collect his dish and immediately started to cry. There at his spot were two nickles and five pennies.
You see, he couldn’t have a banana split because there would not have been enough to leave her a tip.