Hand-shakings and head-pattings followed as Keith was presented to
"Uncle" This and "Uncle" That. He didn't object and he didn't care. They
looked nice enough, and their talk was friendly, but somehow he felt
that his parents did not care for them. Some of the glamour had left the
place. In spite of its magnificence, he did not like it, although he was
glad to have seen it.

Discovering a wastepaper basket full of envelopes with brightly coloured
marks on them, he regained his interest a little. He knew those marks
for stamps and they had pictures on them which attracted him very much.
So he made a bee-line for the basket and proceeded to pick out what he
liked best.

"Have you forgotten what I told you," he heard his father shout to him.

"They have been thrown away," he said going toward the father.

"That is neither here nor there," was the sharp answer he got. "You know
they are not yours, and so you must not touch them. Put them back
at once."

Keith did as he was told, wondering if he really had done anything wrong
or if his father merely objected for some reason of his own.

Then he walked around uninterested and forlorn until they were ready to
go home again. The stairway seemed shorter as they descended, but the
pillars were tall and thick as before. And on the way home his father
found a little shop open and bought him a few _öre's_ worth of
hard candy.