CHRISTMAS at Court, as elsewhere, was a time of jubilant festivity preceded by long weeks of hard work and preparation. As the Princess herself remarked, “one never dare sit down and think for a minute without a piece of work in one’s hand.”

Somewhere about the middle of November, or even earlier, was the great time in Berlin for charity bazaars, which the Court ladies assiduously attended, making large purchases of clothing on behalf of Her Majesty. I often accompanied one of them to the various big shops of Berlin, and gasped at the prompt and wholesale manner of her orders—fifteen cushions and twenty-five photograph frames being selected in as many seconds, together with other objects in like proportion.

Enormous bales of goods began to arrive, and were placed in the Marmor Saal, a splendid apartment which was used on great occasions for the entertainment of royal guests, but in the weeks before Christmas took on a more homely human aspect, being piled up with warm garments of every description, heaps of toys, books, almanacks, cakes of soap, boots and shoes.

Every man, woman and child having any connection with the royal estates in Cadinen, Hubertus-stock, Rominten, Neues Palais or Berlin was remembered, and the work involved in choosing their various gifts was always personally superintended and shared by Her Majesty, the Princess and the ladies of the Court. I can still feel in my nose the disagreeable tingle, analogous to a mild form of hay fever, caused by the fluffiness of those multitudinous piles of flannelette garments, thick woolly stockings and socks which I helped to sort and count. The Inspektor (agent) or clergyman of every district had to furnish a list of every family in it, with the name and age of each member of it accurately inscribed. Everybody received one garment at least, together with a toy (if a child), a book, a text, and one or two packages of Pfeffer-Kuchen. Each bundle was tied up separately with pink or blue tape, and labelled with the name of the person for whom it was intended, together with the list of gifts.

Often there were families of nine or ten children, and nearly every year one more infant was added to their list. The Empress when distributing the cakes of soap would relate how the good peasants at first preferred to keep them as souvenirs rather than use them for their legitimate purpose, bringing them out with pride to show to Her Majesty a year or so later, carefully wrapped up and put away.

One of those persons whose idea of the German Empress is that she spends her life in a series of domestic duties once sent for her acceptance a small parcel, together with the following letter:

The “enclose cover” was a green apron with a nice large pocket in what is called, I believe, “art shade,” but as such gifts are never accepted without payment it was put on one side with the idea of being returned. Her Majesty, however, happening to need something as a protection for her dress when handling the before-mentioned fluffy garments, found that the green apron supplied a distinct want, and it was worn every day by the Empress for the next few weeks. Obviously “James Barker,” even if his literary style was not of the highest order, had an instinct for supplying the right thing at the right moment. The “Irish apron” was the subject of constant praise, and during “the wearin’ o’ the green” Her Majesty frequently expressed her appreciation of its practical utility. It was, I believe, the only apron Her Majesty ever wore.

To the Princess personally, the approach of Christmas was a serious time for many reasons, chiefly financial. Until she was seventeen she received only a personal allowance of five marks a month, out of which she was supposed to buy her own stamps and to spare a Sunday contribution towards the collection. It may perhaps be a breach of confidence to reveal that this contribution was never allowed to exceed ten pfennigs, amounting to one penny in English coin; and I can never forget the look of sorrowful indignation when I tendered to her one day in chapel, out of pure inadvertence, the smallest silver coin of German currency, a fifty-pfennig-piece, worth a little less than sixpence. She had to put it in the plate, but absolutely refused to refund me the excess value.

“How am I to buy my stamps when you are so reckless?” she demanded when outside the chapel door.

The balancing of her small accounts was always fraught with many sighs and groans.

“Always thirty-five pfennigs too little,” she would announce as she drew the final double line. She had the greatest sympathy with Mr. Micawber when we read “David Copperfield” together, and agreed heartily with his dictum that, given an income of twenty pounds a year, the spending of nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence would result in happiness, but that if the expenditure reached twenty pounds and sixpence it would spell misery. So that as soon as Christmas began to loom in the distance there were many anxious consultations as to how to obtain the necessary presents for her various relations. Of course “Papa and Mamma” had to have something very special and individual worked by herself—anything bought ready-made in a shop was not to be thought of.

“Cushions and lampshades seem to be the only things one can make oneself,” said the Princess disconsolately, “and Mamma has twenty-four lampshades already and dozens and dozens of cushions. We must think of something cheap too. I’m so awfully poor.”

Year after year this problem re-emerged. Fortunately the powers that controlled the purse-strings decreed that all materials for presents should be bought out of the Princess’s own money, but that in the matter of “making up” the exchequer would provide the needful funds.

So the harassed child was forced into the manufacture of those articles which are cheap in the initial outlay but rather expensive to complete, such as slippers, worked picture-frames, cushions, and so on.

One Christmas, at an acute crisis when for some reason the list of presents expanded to twenty-eight, the advent into fashion of ribbon-work saved her from despair. She begged some odd pieces of silk and brocade from Her Majesty’s workroom for the purpose of making glove and handkerchief sachets. Ribbon-work is, as everyone knows who has done it, capable, especially the broad kind, of making the maximum of effect with the minimum of effort. So while I hastily sketched simple but pleasing designs of apple-blossom or violets on the corners of everything, the Princess sat and worked feverishly. She was an indefatigable and rapid needlewoman—perhaps a little too rapid to be very accurate—and got through a tremendous amount of work, sticking to it hour after hour if the occasion demanded it and any one would read to her. To this day certain portions of “Kidnapped” or “Hereward” seem inextricably interwoven in my mind with the sound of those long-drawn gay ribbons and an intensely absorbed face surrounded by tumbled golden hair, bending in the lamplight over her self-imposed task.

Sometimes the Princess and Prince Joachim when they were sitting in the evening with the Empress would both be working at the very Christmas present destined for her, and she was therefore bound, under often-reiterated promises, to ignore what they were doing and to turn her eyes conscientiously in another direction. Her Majesty often laughingly complained of the suspicions they both harboured as to her integrity in this matter. They would erect newspaper screens around themselves and their occupations, and if the screens fell down, as frequently happened, then “Mamma” had to shut her eyes or turn away her head until they were temporarily re-erected, only to fall down again in another five minutes.

About three weeks or less before Christmas, a further inroad on our time was made by the practice of carol-singing, which took place (on account of the piano) in the salon of the Princess, leading out of that of the Ober-Gouvernante. Every one of the ladies and gentlemen of the Palace possessing the very faintest pretension to vocal ability was pressed into the service, and the unfortunate Hof-Prediger or Court Chaplain, who undertook the herculean task of training this very scratch choir to sing together in some kind of time and tune, was, especially as he was a very musical man, much to be pitied; but with unfailing good-humour he bravely battled with his task.

All the sons of the Emperor on leaving the University have homes and households of their own provided in Potsdam, where they live until they marry; and these Princes, with their adjutants, were invited to come and help to swell the chorus, and, as they stayed in the Neues Palais itself during Christmas week, were, although they grew a little restive under the process, constantly summoned from their rooms for “one more practice.”

One of their adjutants was a great disappointment to us. We had built great hopes upon him, as he had declared himself capable of singing bass, but his idea was to boom out the air an octave below the treble, which was of course very unsatisfactory.

By means of ceaseless drilling and practising the Princess and Prince Joachim had been taught to sing alto; the Hof-Prediger himself sang tenor; and as the ladies managed the treble very well we had great hopes of being able to perform a capella, that is without instrumental accompaniment. But, however well we sang beforehand, at the critical moment this design had always to be abandoned. Somebody had a cold, or another was not sure of a C sharp, and most of us were frightfully nervous, so that after much discussion and wrangling we invariably fell back on the support of the piano.

These carols, Stille Nacht, Kommet ihr Kinder, and others were to be performed first before the assembled maids, footmen and JÄgers who came to receive presents from Her Majesty, and afterwards before the Emperor himself, so that we naturally were anxious to acquit ourselves as well as possible.

All over Germany the Bescherung or presentation of Christmas gifts always takes place on Christmas Eve—Weihnachts Abend—usually in the evening.

To understand something of the intensity to which at Christmas the atmosphere can attain, one must be at that time in the Fatherland. A good six weeks beforehand, those who happen to be near the railway line may note the passing of luggage trains bearing nothing but small pine trees—that is to say comparatively small for many are ten or twelve feet high. They are the thinnings of the big pine forests of the ThÜringer-Wald, and come down daily to Berlin and the other large towns to supply the wants of the dealers in such trees. Every public square becomes a miniature pine-wood. Even the stringent police regulations are relaxed for the time. In all the broad streets are dealers in trees, sellers of toys, of Pfeffer Kuchen, of filigree ornaments, of air-ships, toy flying-machines and other Christmas luxuries.

Travellers in the train can see depending by a string from the sill of every window of those huge barrack-like flats which surround Berlin, usually hanging upside down, the Weihnachts-Baum, the tree of promise, which has to be kept in as out-of-door conditions as possible, or, being cut off at the root, it would soon become dangerously dry if it were not occasionally damped with the watering-can. It is safe to say that hardly any house in Germany, whether the inhabitants be young or old, rich or poor, is without its tiny tree at Christmas-tide. One sees them in lonely signal-boxes on the railway, in poverty-stricken cottage windows, in workshops, in barracks, in churches and chapels. There is a touching and peculiar sentiment towards Christmas inherent in every German heart, which makes the very scent of a burning pine branch, that aromatic smell which pervades the air at this season, recall the old childish days, the wonder and the glory of Weihnachts-Glanz.

So that everybody in the Neues Palais, wearing the slightly worried look peculiar to the time, strains every nerve to add his or her quota to the general Weihnachts-stimmung—or “Christmasmood.”

It is in the big Muschel-Saal that the glory and brightness concentrate. Here in this wonderful hall of shells the row of big Christmas trees is arranged—one for every child of the Emperor, one for His Majesty and the Empress, and another for the ladies-in-waiting, nine trees in all, besides two for the servants’ distribution. In addition to this every one must have a private tree. It would be a terrible thing to find a single sitting-room without its little pine-tree and shining tinsel ornaments.

The Muschel-Saal occupies the centre of the Palace. On its walls are every variety of shell, arranged in fantastic patterns—roses, stars, and spirals of every kind—while the middle pillars are decorated with specimens of various beautiful stone or marble in a kind of irregular rockwork. Here are to be found large lumps of amber from the shores of the Baltic Sea (one with a fly distinctly visible far below the surface), pieces of blue lapis lazuli, green malachite, red jasper and ringed onyx, alabaster, porphyry, quartz of every shape and colour, irregular pieces all highly polished and set in cement on the massive square pillars that uphold the roof. They sparkle in a thousand colours under the wax lights of the candelabra and the twinkling tapers of the trees.

These last are decorated almost entirely by the young princes and their sister. Besides the candles they are hung with Konfekt, most delicious chocolate rings covered with “hundreds and thousands.” Sometimes the decorators take slight nibbles at broken pieces, and are sternly checked for it by the others. Then plenty of silver “lametta” and “angels’-hair,” filmy silvery threads giving an impression of hoar-frost, are added, and a Christbaum-Engel with wide-open wings or a large silver star is put at the apex of each tree, which is then firmly fixed in a large green-painted stand, specially made for its reception.

The real business of Bescherung begins already upon the day before Christmas Eve, or even sooner. The Empress rushes from one Kinder-heim to another, to hospitals and schools, putting in a few minutes here and there, always with the same ready smile for every one, the same fresh look of interest in the oft-repeated ceremony, the oft-sung carol. She never tires of giving pleasure to others, and has little time to rest. It is a very busy day, too, for the Princess, for all the morning she is busy decorating a small tree for two needy

children—little girls who are chosen by the Hof-Prediger with the help of a deaconess who visits the poorer quarters of the town. These two children with their mother or an elder sister are invited to come to the Palace in the afternoon, where they are given coffee and cake in the little kitchen of the Prinzen-Wohnung. Their ages are usually between seven and nine, and they are often painfully shy, though there are brilliant exceptions whose naturalness breaks through the artificial barrier of onerous and excessive Manieren imposed on them by anxious relations imperfectly instructed in such things.

While they consume their coffee and cake, the Princess directs her footman to draw down all the blinds of the big salon, so as to shut out the two-o’clock winter daylight and create a proper background for the twinkling lights on the tree, which are all reflected from the mirrors of the room. On a table are spread out a complete suit of clothing for each child, not excepting boots and stockings, a large basket of provisions, containing among other things some of those famous German sausages, Leber-Wurst and Blut-Wurst, besides coffee, sugar, Pfeffer-Kuchen and other Christmas delicacies. There is always a large doll on each side of the table supported by the heap of clothing and staring into the middle distance with the usual doll-like look of vacuity.

The Ober-Gouvernante and one or two of the ladies of the Empress are always present, and the Princess professes to feel very nervous, though there is little sign of it in her greeting of the shy little mites, when the big doors are opened by the footmen and they creep in with their mother, almost overcome with the beauty and the wonder of it all. Hand in hand they stand in front of the tree, the light shining on their little pinched faces, and together repeat the Weihnachts-Geschichte, the Bible story of the first Christmas, which every well-brought-up German child, rich or poor, learns as soon as it can lisp. Sometimes, with much nervous twisting of clean pinafores, they even sing a carol in a breathless, desperate kind of way. Everybody feels relieved when this ordeal is safely over and the childish voices with their nasal twang have ceased. Then the Princess tells them it was very nice, and taking them by the hand leads them up to the tree and shows them the shoes and stockings and dresses and dolls, while the rest of us draw aside and leave them together a little. Almost invariably the children are taken into the bedroom of the Princess to try on the new dresses to see if they fit, and presently emerge to gratify our eyes with their beauty.

After a while they depart, usually carrying the dolls and some of the clothes and provisions, but leaving the bulk of them, including the tree, to be brought next morning to the place where they live by the Commissions-Wagen of the Palace, which is always on the road to or from Potsdam in those terribly busy weeks. Different children were, of course, invited every year, and this pleasant custom continued until the Princess was seventeen years of age, when she began to share her mother’s charities. In her earlier days, the names of the children were of the greatest interest, and she was delighted with two who bore the unusual patronymic of Ballschuh.

At about eleven o’clock on the morning of Christmas Eve takes place the Bescherung for the servants of the Princess, including the grooms and stablemen. The latter come across the Mopke in their neat livery and follow the housemaids and footmen, who enter with smiling bows and range themselves round the table on which stands the tree. The blinds have again been drawn, for no Christmas Tree can do itself justice in the daylight. The little plates, eggcups and Bier-glÄser, bought with the pocket money of the Princess, each bear the recipient’s name written by herself. These things have all been personally selected from the shops which, until the time she was grown up, she was allowed to visit only once a year, and the proper allocation of gifts has caused her much heart-searching. She utters a sigh of relief as the last servant files out, each carrying his present with the invariably accompanying packet of Pfeffer-Kuchen.

On Christmas Eve the Emperor, as is well known, has a habit of walking abroad, his pockets, or rather those of his accompanying adjutants, full of gold and silver coin. These coins he distributes in a promiscuous manner to whomsoever he may chance to meet; it may be to a gardener, or a sentry on duty at the gates, or a little schoolboy or girl, or even an officer may be the recipient of this Christmas dole, which is always highly prized by those who chance to receive it. The sentry is prevented by the regulations from taking the coin (usually a twenty-mark piece) when on duty, so it is generally placed in the sentry-box till guard is relieved. One Christmas the Princess was walking with four of her brothers down the wide drive of the Neuer Garten, when in the distance they saw the Emperor approaching accompanied by his adjutants. Knowing the errand which had taken His Majesty abroad, Prince Fritz laughingly suggested that there might be a chance of receiving some Christmas money, so under his orders they ranged themselves in military formation beside the road, standing at the salute (at least the Princes did—the ladies merely kept “eyes front”) as the Emperor drew near. He returned the salute, but said in a gruff voice as he passed, speaking in English, “No, you won’t get anything—all labour in vain,” and gave an emphatic nod, while the would-be recipients giggled at each other and felt rather foolish.

“He might have given us a mark each,” complained the Princess.

It was always notable how many gardeners there were out on the paths, sweeping invisible leaves away on Christmas Eve; but His Majesty’s selection of a route was always unexpected, so that there was little to be gained by any attempt to guess the probable course of his wanderings.

The Bescherung to the servants took place about two o’clock in the Schilder-Saal or Hall of Shields. Long tables were laid down the centre of the room, on which were arranged in due order everybody’s gifts. Two or three large Christmas trees were lighted, and in the corner stood the piano which was to reinforce our efforts at carol-singing. In poured a crowd of white-capped housemaids, green-clad JÄgers, footmen, and Kammer-diener (butlers). All the ladies were assembled in dÉcolletÉe evening dress, and those who had undertaken to help in singing carols were beginning to tremble, especially when the leading soprano whispered that she had a slight sore throat and couldn’t sing a note.

Then the Empress, also in evening dress, arrived with the Princess and the princes in full uniform, including, until his marriage, the Crown Prince; and the choir timidly sang the first carol, which always sounded a little thin and chirpy in that large room. It was listened to with the greatest respect, if not pleasure, and then another was sung at the request of the Empress, while everybody stood patiently waiting till it was finished. Her Majesty then walked round and showed everybody their presents, which consisted of dress-pieces, counterpanes, curtains, clocks, etc. She began with the housekeeper, and as year after year the tables were arranged in the same order, the whole ceremony, if it could be called ceremony where everything was so simple and kindly, was soon at an end, and they all trooped away with their cutlery, silver, pictures and photographs—leaving nothing behind but the bare tables with their white cloths and the Christmas trees.

Then, after a short pause, a general move was made to the apartment of the Empress, where carols were to be sung for the delectation of His Majesty. There was the last almost acrimonious dispute as to whether they should be sung with or without accompaniment, ending, as was confidently expected, in favour of the moral support afforded by the piano. One lady is warned about her E, which is inclined to be a little flat, and the question hurriedly discussed as to whether somebody who has been singing seconds had not better join the trebles weakened by incipient colds. Nothing is settled when the door from the next room opens and His Majesty steps in, bows, and stands in an attitude of attention not unmixed with boredom which makes everybody’s blood run cold.

The Hof-Prediger’s face wears a look of concentrated anxiety and apprehension as he counts the first bar and plunges into the accompaniment. The top E is safely passed—not perhaps quite exact as to pitch, but not so very bad—the adjutants are booming their tenor and bass with praiseworthy conscientiousness if little skill, and we settle down to verses two and three with renewed confidence. The second high E is on the down grade, and the third one almost painful, but as soon as the last note has died away the Princess and Prince Joachim both together begin feverishly to recite the Weihnachts-Geschichte, which it is customary for every Prussian prince and princess to repeat yearly from the age of six until Confirmation.

When they have got half-way through, “Stille Nacht” is sung, and then they finish the Christmas story to the end, and a third carol is performed; all hoping that it didn’t really sound as bad as it seemed to do.

Sometimes His Majesty takes hold of a hymn-book and sings with the rest; while, since their marriage, the Crown Prince and Princess are accustomed to join in the music, and everyone feels that this attempted harmony is “sehr nett” if not particularly brilliant.

Then all file in to dinner at the impossible hour of four o’clock. It is given thus early so that the numerous guests may still be in time for their own private festivities at home. All the Emperor’s old adjutants and court officials are invited, and assemble in the big salons near the Jasper Gallery, in which dinner is served at a series of small round or oval tables. Monster carp are brought round boiled in ale, looking plethoric and porpoise-like, and the meal winds up with English plum-pudding and mince-pies served with flaming brandy sauce. The German gentlemen are not at all fond of plum-pudding—they think it horrible stuff; but they like the mince-pies, especially the brandy-sauce part.

As soon as dinner is finished, the Emperor gives a signal, the doors into the Muschel-Saal are thrown open, and all walk through into the Christmas brilliancy. The whole row of lighted trees ranged the length of the immense hall shed that clear yet soft subdued light of multitudinous wax tapers which is more beautiful than any other. Electricity has been installed in the Muschel-Saal within the last few years, and much of the old glamour of the scene has departed—the candles burn palely, they have lost some of the old warmth and glow, the green of the foliage has become faded.

Round the Saal, tables are arranged as at a bazaar, and each lady has one to herself loaded with presents. The Emperor sometimes walks round and shows his own gift, usually a very beautiful fur, where it lies on each person’s table; but one of the great charms of His Majesty is that he has no stereotyped line of conduct—if he doesn’t feel like walking round and making himself agreeable he doesn’t do it. He is no slave to precedent. So then we find his present on our tables by ourselves, and go up and curtsey and thank him as opportunity offers. The Empress has always given one principal present, the nature of which each recipient has herself chosen; and in addition scatters with liberal hand small additional trifles such as work-bags, pincushions, books, small articles of jewellery. All the adjutants and generals receive something handsome and substantial: one has a Turkey rug, another a bronze bust of the Emperor, a third a pair of silver candelabra. But whatever else they get, a large plate of nuts, cakes and chocolates accompanies each table—and those gentlemen who have to return to Berlin early may presently be seen, aided by footmen, pouring their nuts and gingerbread into large brown-paper bags, which they carry away under one arm, for all the world like children from a Sunday-school treat. This procession of grey-haired generals and officers in uniform going off like schoolboys with their booty seems to afford the Emperor much pleasure.

The tables of the Empress and Emperor are covered with offerings from their relatives in England and elsewhere; but the chief interest is in the presents to the Princess. When she reached her twelfth year, on her Christmas table appeared the plans of a tiny Bauern-Haus, the gift of her father. It was built the following spring in the children’s garden—a real peasant’s wooden kitchen, with a real stove and saucepans where cooking and washing may be done. It had bottle-glass windows and half-doors with bottle-glass in the upper portions. There was a larder with a buttery-hatch, and it speedily became the scene of fearsome cookery experiments involving lavish outlay in eggs and milk. Here was dispensed much hospitality to all classes of visitors.

Another Christmas she received from the Emperor a pony-cart, to replace the blue-lined Turkish victoria of the Sultan, which was now deemed too childish and theatrical in appearance. The ponies were promoted to a workmanlike little vehicle of light-coloured ash, capable of holding, at a pinch, six persons; and it remained the chief medium of transport until after the Emperor’s visit to Highcliffe, near Bournemouth, when he brought back with him a beautiful little New Forest pony and “tub,” which completely eclipsed Ali and Aladdin, who were given away to a friend in the country. Perhaps, however, the most charming of all the Christmas presents which the Emperor gave his daughter was a most beautiful little Arab mare called “Irene.” She was brought from the stables at the time of the Bescherung and led up the terrace steps into the big hall in front of the Muschel-Saal, where she stood gazing round in her well-bred gentle manner at all the ladies in their evening finery and the brilliant uniforms that crowded round her. She looked at them out of her beautiful eyes with a fearless, rather disdainful, air, and the lights of the many candles shone on the satin of her bright strawberry coat—for she was a wonderfully-coloured red-roan of an unusual tone. She had all the marvellous dignity of poise and light springy footsteps of her race, and had been highly trained and schooled in the “Spanish trot,” “passaging,” and other riding-school attainments, while her action across country was, as the Princess said when someone called it poetry, “almost a love-song in sixteen verses.”

Unfortunately a year or two after her entrance into the stables she was seized with influenza, and died in spite of all efforts to save her.

Towards six o’clock the household, one by one, slips away, and leaves the Imperial Family alone to spend the rest of the evening in each other’s society. Every year from Christmas to New Year’s Day the Muschel-Saal, especially in the evenings, is the family rendezvous. As soon as it is dark the Christmas trees are lighted and tea and supper are taken under the shadow of their branches. The Emperor sits at a table writing his New Year cards or reading, sometimes aloud, sometimes to himself; everybody is busy examining and comparing presents or writing letters of thanks.

Christmas Day itself is passed very quietly, the luncheon strictly en famille, with none even of the suite present. As many as can be spared of the married servants are sent home, to be at least a part of the day with their families. Every possible consideration is shown, so that not the humblest worker is deprived of a share of leisure and opportunity to visit his friends.

One Christmas the Emperor was in a very “anecdotal” mood, and chatted for some time to his suite, telling many amusing traits of the late Duke of Cambridge—“Uncle George” as he called him.

His Majesty mentioned the well-known fact that “Uncle George” was one of the hard-swearing military type, now—it is said—practically extinct, and scattered volleys of oaths abroad at the slightest excuse; but somebody having once drawn attention to the great prevalence of “language” in the army, he, quite unconscious of his own shortcomings, set himself to reform the great organization of which at that time he was Commander-in-Chief. After a long harangue to the assembled officers, plentifully belarded with oaths, he concluded by saying: “I’m damned if I’ll allow this habit of swearing to go on: who the devil ever heard me swear?”

Once he had planned to show to the German Emperor and the King of Greece, who were together in England, some pet improvements in drill which he had recently introduced, and of which he was extremely proud. After they had been feasted “right royally” at the officers’ mess, where plenty of champagne was consumed, the Royalties all mounted their horses and proceeded to Woolwich Common for the purpose of beholding the proposed exercises. But unfortunately the Duke had forgotten to take into account the fact that the day was Bank Holiday, and to his disgust and astonishment found his beloved common black with “trippers” (“fifty thousand of ’em,” sniggered the Emperor). The Duke was nearly suffocated with rage and disgust, and ordered the escort (eighteen mounted Hussars) to charge and disperse the people. The impossibility of this being, however, demonstrated, he himself proceeded on his great raw-boned charger to harangue the multitude, damning their bodies and souls with the greatest impartiality, and vainly trying to inspire them with a sense of the enormity of choosing this particular day for their sportive gambols on the Common.

When he at last stopped, as the Emperor put it “for want of wind,” a dead silence fell for a moment on the astonished crowd, who were expected to melt sadly away; but suddenly a British workman standing near, equal—as British workmen generally are—to the occasion, took off his cap and waving it in the air cried out “Three cheers for ’is R’yl ‘Ighness the Dook o’ Cambridge,” which three cheers were immediately given with the greatest spontaneity and goodwill, the crowd seeming to enjoy being abused by Royalty. But, as the Duke himself afterwards sadly observed, “They didn’t budge an inch, Sire, not an inch. They stopped there all the same.” So the proposed military evolutions did not take place that day and had to be postponed to a more convenient season.