But just when he was saying this there was a knock at the door and Mrs. O’Halloran came in.  I knew at once what she had come for, because she had been threatening to do it, and so I felt dreadfully nervous when she began to say that our bill at the house had gone unpaid too long and that we must pay her at once what we owed her.  It took some time before Uncle William understood what she was talking about, but when he did he became dreadfully frigid and polite.  He said, “Let me understand clearly, madame, just what it is that you wish to say:  do I apprehend that you are saying that my account here for our maintenance is now due and payable?” Mrs. O’Halloran said yes, she was.  And Uncle said, “Let me endeavour to grasp your meaning exactly:  am I correct in thinking that you mean I owe you money?” Mrs. O’Halloran said that was what she meant.  Uncle said, “Let me try to apprehend just as accurately as possible what it is that you are trying to tell me:  is my surmise correct that you are implying that it is time that I settled up my bill?”

Mrs. O’Halloran said, “Yes,” but I could see that by this time she was getting quite flustered because there was something so dreadfully chilling in Uncle’s manner:  his tone in a way was courtesy itself, but there was something in it calculated to make Mrs. O’Halloran feel that she had committed a dreadful breach in what she had done.  Uncle William told me afterwards that to mention money to a prince is not a permissible thing, and that no true Hohenzollern has ever allowed the word “bill” to be said in his presence, and that for this reason he had tried, out of courtesy, to give the woman every chance to withdraw her words and had only administered a reprimand to her when she failed to do so.  Certainly it was a dreadful rebuke that he gave her.  He told her that he must insist on this topic being dismissed and never raised again:  that he could allow no such discussion:  the subject was one, he said, that he must absolutely refuse to entertain:  he did not wish, he said, to speak with undue severity, but he had better make it plain that if there were any renewal of this discussion he should feel it impossible to remain in the house.

While Uncle William was saying all this Mrs. O’Halloran was getting more and more confused and angry, and when Uncle finally opened the door for her with cold dignity, she backed out of it and found herself outside the room without seeming to know what she was doing.  Presently I could hear her down in the scullery below, rattling dishes and saying that she was just as good as anybody.

But Uncle William seemed to be wonderfully calmed and elevated after this scene, and said, “Princess, bring me my flute.”  I brought it to him and he sat by the window and leaned his head out over the back lane and played our dear old German melodies, till somebody threw a boot at him.  The people about here are not musical.  But meantime Uncle William had forgotten all about the School of Art, and he said no more about it.