where it came from.  I asked him to give me some to pay Mrs. O’Halloran, but he only laughed in his leering way and said that he needed it all.  At another time when I went up to Cousin Willie’s room one day when he was out, I saw quite a lot of silver things hidden in a corner of the cupboard.  They looked like goblets and silver dinner things, and there was a revolver and a sheath-knife hidden with them.  I began to think that he must have stolen all these things, though it seemed impossible for a prince.  I have spoken to Uncle William several times about Cousin Willie, but he gets impatient and does not seem to care.  Uncle never desires very much to talk of people other than himself.  I think it fatigues his mind.  In any case, he says that he has done for Willie already all that he could.  He says he had him confined to a fortress three times and that four times he refused to have him in his sight for a month, and that twice he banished him to a country estate for six weeks.  His duty, he says, is done.  I said that I was afraid that Cousin Willie had been stealing and told him about the silver things hidden in the cupboard.  But Uncle got very serious and read me a very severe lecture.  No prince, he said, ever stole.  His son, he explained, might very well be collecting souvenirs as memorials of his residence in America:  all the Hohenzollerns collected souvenirs:  some of our most beautiful art things at Potsdam and Sans Souci were souvenirs collected by our ancestors in France fifty years ago.  Uncle said that if the Great War had turned out as it should and if his soldiers had not betrayed him by getting killed, we should have had more souvenirs than ever.  After that he dismissed the subject from his mind.  Uncle William can dismiss things from his mind more quickly than anybody I ever knew.

The Same Day.  Later

I was so surprised this afternoon, when I happened to go down to the door, to see Mr. Peters, the ice gentleman that was on the ship, with his ice cart delivering ice into the basement.  I knew that he delivered ice in this part of the city because he said so, and I think he had mentioned this street, and two or three times I thought I had seen him from the window.  But it did seem surprising to happen to go down to the door (I forget what I went for) at the moment that he was there.  He looked very fine in his big rough suit of overalls.  It is not quite like a military uniform, but I think it looks better.  Mr. Peters knew me at once.  “Good afternoon, Miss Hohen,” he said (that is the name, as I think I said, that we have here), “how are all the folks?”