taught to regard himself as a young gentleman. They lived a few houses
from the school, in the same street, and their home was a revelation
to Keith.

Houses less fortunate than his own were familiar to him, but he had
never seen a better one until he was asked to visit Harald for the first
time, and the comparisons made on that occasion stuck deeply in
his mind.

They entered through a hallway where caps and coats were left behind,
and from there they went into a room where every piece of furniture was
of mahogany. Between the windows hung a mirror in a gilded frame that
was as tall as the room itself, so that Keith could see himself from
head to foot. The object that caught the boy's attention most of all,
however, was a chandelier suspended from the middle of the ceiling and
made up of hundreds of little rods of glass. As Harald slammed the door
on entering, some of the rods were set in motion and struck against each
other with a tiny twinkle that seemed to Keith the most beautiful sound
he had ever heard.

That room, Harald said, was used only to receive visitors, and he gave
Keith to understand that there were any number of other rooms on both
sides of it. One of these was Harald's own and used by nobody else. He
could even lock the door of it on the inside, if he wanted. There they
played with tin soldiers several inches high, and Harald had a little
cannon out of which they could shoot dry peas, so that it was possible
to fight a real battle by dividing the soldiers and taking turns of
using the cannon. Finally Harald's mother appeared with a bowl of fruit
and greeted the visitor with a certain searching kindness that made him
a little uneasy in the midst of all his enjoyment.