The book does not close with a single lesson, and the last chapter says so by leaving the choice to the reader: "weep for the two recent dead, if you have tears. If you have only laughter, then laugh! It is the same thing." What it shows, scene by scene, is what money does to a man who inherited a fortune without earning it, and who stands beside him when the money and the reason go.
On one side is the self-interest of the friends. On the train, when Rubião says he might go to Europe, Palha's eyes shine; when he tells of the inheritance, "his eyes no longer shone, they reflected deeply," and only then does Palha ask for discretion. Then he guides him, becomes his partner, and dissolves the partnership, citing a bank that, according to the narrator, did not exist. He installs Rubião in a small house on Rua do Príncipe, commits him, and recovers three contos and two hundred by liquidating his assets. Camacho, who had offered him a candidacy, receives him coldly, and the dinner guests do not follow him to the new house.
On the other side is the dog. It is the one who stays: it tries to follow the carriage when its master is committed, sleeps with him in the open air in Barbacena, and after the master's death goes in search of him and is found dead in the street. The narrator describes it as beating and forgiving: "He likes to be loved. He is content to believe that he is." The will had already ordered that it be treated "as if it were not a dog, but a human person." The book leaves the contrast to the reader.
The philosopher's doctrine, "To the victor, the potatoes," also comes with no verdict. Rubião understands it only after inheriting, because "the best way to appreciate the whip is to hold its handle," and he repeats it at his death, with the crown only he sees, leaving it half-finished. Whoever seeks the moral therefore finds a portrait rather than a rule.