"I think you must have caught my thoughts," said the little girl, "for the emperor was in my mind when you began to speak."
"Well, never mind that. Do you wish to hear about the palace?"
"Of course I do, Hans."
"The schoolmaster says it has six hundred rooms. Just think of it! And one of them, called the White Room, is furnished so grandly that 2,400,000 marks were spent on it. You can't imagine it, Bertha, of course. I can't, either."
A German mark is worth about twenty-four cents of American money, so the furnishing of the room Hans spoke of must have cost about $600,000. It was a large sum, and it is no wonder the boy said he could hardly imagine so much money.
"There are hundreds of halls in the palace," Hans went on. "Some of their walls are painted and others are hung with elegant silk draperies. The floors are polished so they shine like mirrors. Then the pictures and the armour, Bertha! It almost seemed as though I were there while the schoolmaster was describing them."
"I never expect to see such lovely things," said his sober little sister. "But perhaps I shall go to Berlin some day, Hans. Then I can see the statue of Frederick the Great, at any rate."
"It stands opposite the palace," said her brother, "and cost more than any other bronze statue in the world."
"How did you learn that, Hans?"