But when Uncle William makes speeches in the dining-room
I think the whole room becomes transformed for him into
the banquet room of a palace, and the cheap bracket lamps
against the wall turn into a blaze of light and the
boarders are all courtiers, and he becomes more and more
grandiloquent. He waves his hand towards Uncle Henry and
refers to him as "my brother the Admiral," and to me as
"the Princess at my side." Some of the people, the meaner
ones, begin to laugh and to whisper, and others look
uncomfortable and sorry. And it is always on these
occasions that Uncle William refers to himself as America's
guest, and refers to the Americans as the hospitable
nation who have taken him to their heart. I think that
when Uncle says this he really believes it; Uncle can
believe practically anything if he says it himself.

So, as I say, when he came home yesterday, after failing
to sell his pictures, he was at first furious and then
he fell into his other mood and he said that, as the
guest of a great people, he had found out at last the
return he could make to them. He said that he would
organise a School of Art, and as soon as he had got the
idea he was carried away with it at once and seized a
pencil and paper and began making plans for the school
and drawing up a list of the instructors needed. He asked
first who could be Principal, or President, of the School,
and decided that he would have to be that himself as he
knew of no one but himself who had the peculiar power of
organisation needed for it. All the technical instructors,
he said, must be absolutely the best, each one a master