ederick
of the Iron Tooth,' dealing with an ancestor, an Elector of
Brandenburg, and on which Leoncavallo, at the Emperor's
request, wrote the opera 'Der Roland von Berlin,' shows the
Emperor's strictness in this respect. Frederick of the Iron
Tooth is a burgher of Berlin who leads a revolt against the
Elector. In order to heighten Frederick's hate, Lauff wove
in a love theme into the drama. The wife of Ryke,
burgomaster of Berlin, figured as Frederick's mistress and
egged on her lover against the Elector, because the latter
had hanged her brothers, the Quitzows, notorious outlaws of
the Mark Brandenburg. The Emperor cut out the whole episode
when the play was submitted to him in manuscript. The
marginal note in his big, bold handwriting ran: '_Eine
Courtisane kommt in einem Hohenzollerstueck nicht vor_' (A
courtesan has no place in a Hohenzollern drama)."

The Emperor's constant change of uniform is often said to be a sign of
his liking for the theatrical, and writers have compared him on this
account with lightning-change artists like the great Fregoli. Rather
his respect for and reliance on the army, a sense of fitness with the
occasion to be celebrated, a feeling of personal courtesy to the
person to be received, are the motives for such changes. The Paris
_Temps_ published the following incident apropos of the Emperor's
visit to England in November, 1902. When, on arriving at Port
Victoria, the royal yacht _Hohenzollern_ came in view, the members of
the English Court sent to welcome the Emperor saw him through their
glasses walking up and down the captain's bridge wearing a long
cavalry cloak over a German military uniform. When they stepped on
board they found him in the undress uniform of an English admiral.
They lunched with him, and in the afternoon, when he left for London,
he was wearing the uniform of an English colonel of dragoons. Arrived
in London, he left for Sandringham, and must have changed his dress
_en route_, for he left the train in a frock-coat and tall hat.

Perhaps the most notable theatrical event of the reign hitherto was
the production at the Royal Opera in 1908 of the historic pantomime
"Sardanapalus." The Emperor's idea, as he said himself, was to "make
the Museums speak," to which a Berlin critic replied, "You can't
dramatize a museum." The ballet, for it was that as well as a
pantomime, engrossed the Emperor's