ng to
riding again. By his orders, his illness and even his fall are alike
contradicted. His reason for withdrawing himself so long from the gaze
of his adoring subjects is to let his beard grow, after the fashion of
Boulanger. But he hasn't wasted his time; his furious impatience under
activity has brought about a fresh attack.

September 11, 1891. [13]

William II makes every effort to keep the Triple Alliance on its legs (it
being as lame as himself) whilst he continues to give vent to his triple
_hoch!_ and resumes once more his rushing to and fro, so wearisome to his
faithful subjects, which compels the European Press to groan so loudly
that his pennon (Imperial in Austria, or Royal in Bavaria) waves madly
about his excited person. Meanwhile the Emperor Alexander III, calm in
the serenity of his nature, takes his rest in the pleasant retreat of
Fredensborg, where he finds contented virtues and the joys of family life.

It really looks as if a certain deviltry were at work against William II.
His splendid statecraft now revolves about questions of rye bread,
Russian geese, and American pork; he struggles amidst a mass of
difficulties more comic than sublime. He has imposed a system of rigid
protection in order to entangle his allies in a net of tariffs favourable
only to Germany, and now behold him, all of a sudden, removing the duties
off diseased pork, all for the profit of the McKinley Bill, the scourge
of Germany. Only the future can say what dangers await a policy of
fierce protection and dangerous favouritism. How much simpler and
cleverer it would have been to remove the duties on cereals! As far as
the people are concerned, cheap pork will never appeal to them as cheap
bread would have done. The progressive party had asked for both; the
satisfaction they have received appeases them for the moment, but the
socialists will still be able to say that William's Government takes off
the duties on foodstuffs that poison the people, and leaves them on those
which would afford them healthy nourishment.

September 27, 1891. [14]

William II has decidedly no luck when he puts the martial trumpet to his
lips. It was at Erfurt that he learned that the tribes of the Wa Hehe
had massacred Zalewski's expedition into East Africa. It is said that,
on hearing this news, the German Emperor, seized with one of those sudden
outbursts of rage which throw him into convulsions, swore to avenge in
torrents of