arned and philosophic at work, and gladly recognizes their
merit when their labours are thorough and well done. His
mind is marvellously quick, but it does not dwell on
anything for long at a time. It takes in everything
presented to it in, so to speak, a hop, skip, and jump.

"In company he is never at rest, and surprises one by his
lively play of features and the entirely natural and
unaffected expression of his thoughts. He is sitting at a
lecture, perhaps, when a notion occurs to him, and forthwith
indicates it by a humorous grimace or wink to some one
sitting far away from him. He is always saying unexpected
things. On the whole, he is a right good fellow, and I can
imagine that, though he can come down hard on one with a
heavy hand and stern look, he does not do so by the instinct
of a despot, but acting under a sense of duty."

Another diplomatist has remarked the Emperor's habit in conversation
of tapping the person he is talking to on the shoulder and of
scrutinizing him all over--"ears, nose, clothes, until it makes one
feel quite uncomfortable."

The next sketch of him is as he may be seen any day during the
yachting week in June at Kiel:--

"The Emperor is in the smoking-room of the Yacht Club,
dressed in a blue lounge suit with a white peaked cap. He is
sitting carelessly on the side of a table, dangling his legs
and discussing with fellow-members and foreign yachtsmen the
experience of the day, now speaking English, now French, now
German. He seems quite in his element as sportsman, and puts
every one at ease round him. His expression is animated and
his voice hearty, if a little strident to foreign ears. His
right hand and arm are in ceaseless movement, emphasizing
and enforcing everything he says. He asks many questions and
often invites opinion, and when it differs from his own, as
sometimes happens, he takes it quite good-humouredly."

To-day the Emperor is outwardly much the same as he has just been
described. He is perhaps slightly more inclined to stoutness. His
features, though they speak of cleverness and manliness, are forgotten
as one looks into the keen and quickly moving grey eyes with their
peculiar dash of yellow. He is well set up, as is proper for a soldier
ever actively engaged in military duties, and his stride continues
firm and elastic. He is still co