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.

Keith returned home that day much later than unusual to find his mother in a state of frantic worry.  At first she declared that he must not go anywhere without her knowing about it in advance, but after a while she became quite interested and palpably elated by Keith’s tale of all the glories he had seen.  She explained that the glass rods on the chandeliers were prisms that showed the whole rainbow when you held them in front of a light, and she asked him eagerly if he had been invited to come again.  But when the father heard of it that night, he said: 

“I don’t think Keith should go there at all.  He can’t ask such a boy over here, and the next thing we know, Keith’s own home will no longer be good enough for him.”

Keith could hardly believe his ears.  He had never felt such resentment against his father, and just before going to bed, while his father was out of the room for a moment, he whispered to his mother: 

“I think papa does not want me to have any fun!”

“You don’t understand,” she retorted.  “He means well.  Remember what Granny says:  Equals make the best playmates.”

Three or four times Keith went home with Harald.  Then the gates of paradise were suddenly slammed in his face.  One day, as they were leaving school together, Harald remarked quite calmly: 

“You can’t come home with me any more.”

“Why,” gasped Keith, his throat choking.

“Because mamma says I must find some one else to play with,” Harald explained.  Then he softened a little:  “I can’t help it, and I like you.”

“But why,” insisted Keith on the verge of tears.

“You look like a nice boy, mamma says, but your father is nothing but a vaktmaestare, and mine is a grosshandlare (wholesale dealer).”

Keith walked home in a stupor and began to cry the moment he saw his mother.  Her lips tightened and her face grew white as she listened to the story he sobbed forth.

“Now you can see that your father was right,” she said at last.  “Of course, we are just as good as anybody else, but others don’t think so—­because we are poor.  But we have our pride, and you had better stay and play with your own soldiers hereafter.  Then I don’t have to worry about you either.”