“That?  That’s a sauce-box.”  And he smiled.

“Oh!—­What’s it full of, please?”

“Full of mouths,”—­cheerily.

It was her turn to smile.  She smiled into the sauce-box.  At its center was a queer object, very like a short length of dried apple-peeling.

“I s’pose that’s part of a mouth?” she ventured.

He picked up the object and balanced it across his thumb.  “You’ve guessed it!” he declared.  “And it’s a fine thing to carry around with one.  You see, it’s a stiff upper lip.”  He tossed it back.

“My!” She took a deep breath.  “Once I asked and asked about a stiff upper lip.”

He went on with his polishing.  “Should think you’d be more interested in these,” he observed, giving a nod of the ragged hat toward a shallow dish at his elbow.  “Little girls generally are.”

She looked, and saw that the dish was heaped high with what seemed to be white peanuts—­peanuts that tapered to a point at one end.  She puckered her brows over them.

“Can’t guess?” said he.  “Then you didn’t drink enough of that soda-water.  Well, ever hear of a sweet tooth?”

At that she clapped her hands and jumped up and down.  “Why, I’ve got one!” she cried.

“Oh?” said the little old gentleman.  “Thought so.  I always keep a supply on hand.  Carve ’em myself, out of cube sugar.”

“Oh, aren’t they funny!” She leaned above the shallow dish.

“Funny?” repeated the Man-Who-Makes-Faces.  “Not when they get into the wrong mouth!—­a wry mouth, for instance, or an ugly mouth.  A sweet tooth should go, you understand, only with a sweet face.”

“Is it a sweet tooth that makes a face sweet?” she inquired.

“Quite so.”  He held up the nose to examine it critically.

She watched him in silence for a while.  Then, “You don’t mind telling me who’s going to have that?” she ventured, pointing a finger at the nose.

“This?  Oh, this is for a certain little boy’s father.”

She blinked thoughtfully.  “Is his name,” she began—­and stopped.

“His father—­the unfortunate man—­has been keeping his own nose to the grindstone pretty steadily of late, and so—­”

“I can’t just remember the name I’m thinking about,” said Gwendolyn, troubled.

He glanced up.  And the round, bright eyes were grave as he searched her face.  “I wonder,” he said in a low voice, “if you know who you are.”

She smiled.  “Well, I’ve been acquainted with myself for seven years,” she declared.

“But do you know who you are?” (The round eyes were full of tears!)

She felt uncertain.  “I did just a little while ago.  Now, though—­”

He reached to take her hand.  “Shall I tell you?”

“Yes,”—­in a whisper.

“You’re the Poor Little Rich Girl.”  He patted her hand.  “The Poor Little Rich Girl!”