er or two blazing
on his breast. He sits very upright, and starts and keeps going the
conversation with such skill and verve that soon every one, even the
shyest, is drawn into it. There is plenty of argument and divergence
of view. If the Emperor is convinced that he is right, he will, as has
more than once occurred, jestingly offer to back his opinion with a
wager. "I'll bet you"--he will exclaim, with all the energy of an
English schoolboy. He enjoys a joke or witticism immensely, and leans
back in his chair as he joins in the hearty peal about him. When
cigars or cigarettes are handed round, he will take an occasional puff
at one of the three or four cigarettes he allows himself during the
evening, or sip at a glass of orangeade placed before him and filled
from time to time. When he feels disposed he rises, and having shaken
hands with his guests, now standing about him, retires into his
workroom. A few moments later the guests disperse.

Conversation, both in England and Germany, sometimes turns on the
question whether or not the Emperor will be known to future
generations as William "the Great." It is agreed on all sides that he
will not take a place among the mediocrities or sink into oblivion. We
have, though only negatively and indirectly, his own view of the
matter, if, that is, it may be deduced from the fact that he has more
than once tried to attach this _epitheton ornans_ to the memory of his
grandfather. At Hamburg in 1891 he desired a statue to the Emperor
William I to bear the inscription "William the Great." The cool common
sense of the cautious Hamburgers refused to anticipate the decision of
posterity and placed on the pedestal the simple words "William the
First." In deference to the Emperor's well-known wishes, if not at his
request, the Hamburg-Amerika line of steamers christened one of their
ocean greyhounds _Wilhelm der Grosse_. The mere fact that people
discuss the question in his lifetime is of happy augury for the
Emperor. Perhaps some other epithet will be found for him. "Puffing
Billy" is one of his titles among English officers, taken from the
name given locally to Stephenson's first locomotive. But history has
many ranks in her peerage and many epithets at her disposal--great,
good, fair, lionhearted, silent--_that_ the Emperor will not have--and
a host more. Maybe the greatest rulers were those whom history, as
though in despair of finding a single term with which to do them
justice, h