t familiar with the trammelled
and less satisfactory position of guest, therefore I felt a little
strange and out of place. But there was no animosity--no, the Emperor
was host, therefore according to my own rule he had a right to do the
talking, and it was my honorable duty to intrude no interruptions or
other improvements, except upon invitation; and of course it could be
_my_ turn some day: some day, on some friendly visit of inspection to
America, it might be my pleasure and distinction to have him as guest at
my table; then I would give him a rest, and a remarkably quiet time.

In one way there was a difference between his table and mine--for
instance, atmosphere; the guests stood in awe of him, and naturally they
conferred that feeling upon me, for, after all, I am only human,
although I regret it. When a guest answered a question he did it with
deferential voice and manner; he did not put any emotion into it, and he
did not spin it out, but got it out of his system as quickly as he
could, and then looked relieved. The Emperor was used to this
atmosphere, and it did not chill his blood; maybe it was an inspiration
to him, for he was alert, brilliant and full of animation; also he was
most gracefully and felicitously complimentary to my books,--and I will
remark here that the happy phrasing of a compliment is one of the rarest
of human gifts, and the happy delivery of it another. In that other
chapter I mentioned the high compliment which he paid to the book, "Old
Times on the Mississippi," but there were others; among them some
gratifying praise of my description in "A Tramp Abroad" of certain
striking phases of German student life. I mention these things here
because I shall have occasion to hark back to them presently.

[_Dictated Tuesday, February 12, 1907._]

* * * * *

Those stars indicate the long chapter which I dictated yesterday, a
chapter which is much too long for magazine purposes, and therefore must
wait until this Autobiography shall appear in book form, five years
hence, when I am dead: five years according to my calculation,
twenty-seven years according to the prediction furnished me a week ago
by the latest and most confident of all the palmists who have ever read
my future in my hand. The Emperor's dinner, and its beer-and-anecdote
appendix, covered six hours of diligent industry, and this accounts for
the extraordinary length of that chapter.

A couple of days