ho is what one
is bound to call _une maitresse femme_, the boy at seventeen was by no
manner of means prepossessing, and his efforts to assert himself, and
to crush down a good deal of natural awkwardness and timidity added to
his singularly unlikeable appearance.

In those days it could clearly be seen that everything that he did or
said was meant to create an impression of dignity and of grandeur, to
which his physique did not lend itself very easily, and the contrast
between him and his bosom friend the courteous, graceful and dashing
Crown Prince of Austria, was very marked.

Good-hearted and endowed with a great many truly generous instincts
the young fellow was, however, sorely handicapped by his education,
the abnormal strictness displayed towards him at the Court of Berlin,
and also by a continually and most distressingly empty purse. It is a
hard and almost pitiful thing for the heir apparent of a great empire
to find himself often without the necessary amount with which to cut
the figure which his social rank forces him to adopt, and it must have
been especially galling to the overbearing and proud nature of this
boy to be continually obliged to borrow from his friends, nay even
from his _aides de camp_, small sums wherewith to pay his way wherever
he went. Nevertheless his father and mother, then Crown Prince and
Crown Princess of Germany, believed it to be a thoroughly wholesome
thing for the young man to have to humble his pride, should he not be
content with the very small allowance made to him, this unfortunate
idea being, however, the cause of a great deal of bitterness, which to
this day has not completely faded from the heart of the now omnipotent
ruler of the German Empire.

It is undeniable that many eccentricities and false moves on the part
of William II. have been grossly exaggerated and placed before the
public in a false light, showing him up as a conceited, bumptious
and silly person, whereas not only his state of health, but his
_entourage_ should have been blamed for whatever he did that was out
of place. During a great many years the young prince suffered from
what is called technically _otitis media_, namely, a disease of the
middle ear, very painful, exasperating and even somewhat humiliating
to endure, and which he must have inherited in some extraordinary way
from his great-uncle, King William IV. of Prussia, who died insane.
There are certainly some traits of resemblance between this