Chapter VII

The morning when Edward and Marian were to start on their voyage to Trinidad, with Nora in their charge, was a beautifully clear, calm, and sunny one. The tiny steam-tender that took them down Southampton Water, from the landing-stage to the moorings where the big ocean-going Severn lay at anchor, ploughed her way merrily through the blue ripplets that hardly broke the level surface. Though it was a day of parting, nobody was over-sad. General Ord had come down with Marian, his face bronzed with twenty years of India, but straight and erect still like a hop-pole, as he stood with his tall thin figure lithe and steadfast on the little quarter-deck. Mrs Ord was there too, crying a little, of course, as is only decorous on such occasions, yet not more so than a parting always demands from the facile eyes of female humanity. Marian didn’t cry much, either; she felt so safe in going with Edward, and hoped to be back so soon again on a summer visit to her father and mother. As for Nora, Nora was always bright as the sunshine, and could never see anything except the bright side of things. ‘We shall take such care of dear Marian in Trinidad, Mrs Ord!’ she said gaily. ‘You’ll see her home again on a visit in another twelvemonth, with more roses on her cheek than she’s got now, when she’s had a taste of our delicious West Indian mountain air.’

‘And if Trinidad suits Miss Ord—Mrs Hawthorn, I mean—dear me, how stupid of me!’ Harry Noel put in quietly, ‘half as well as it seems to have suited you, Miss Dupuy, we shall have no cause to complain of Hawthorn for having taken her out there.’

‘Oh, no fear of that,’ Nora answered, smiling one of her delicious childish smiles. ‘You don’t know how delightful Trinidad is, Mr Noel; it’s really one of the most charming places in all Christendom.’

‘On your recommendation, then,’ Harry answered, bowing slightly and looking at her with eyes full of meaning, ‘I shall almost be tempted to go out some day and see for myself how really delightful are these poetical tropics of yours.’

Nora blushed, and her eyes fell slightly. ‘You would find them very lovely, no doubt, Mr Noel,’ she answered, more demurely and in a half-timid fashion; ‘but I can’t recommend them, you know, with any confidence, because I was such a very little girl when I first came home to England. You had better not come out to Trinidad merely on the strength of my recommendation.’

Harry bowed his head again gravely. ‘As you will,’ he said. ‘Your word is law. And yet, perhaps some day, I shouldn’t be surprised if Hawthorn and Mrs Hawthorn were to find me dropping in upon them unexpectedly for a scratch dinner. After all, it’s a mere nothing nowadays to run across the millpond, as the Yankees call it.’

They reached the _Severn_ about an hour before the time fixed for starting, and sat on deck talking together with that curious sense of finding nothing to say which always oppresses one on the eve of a long parting. It seems as though no subject of conversation sufficiently important for the magnitude of the occasion ever occurred to one: the mere everyday trivialities of ordinary talk sound out of place at such a serious moment. So, by way of something to do, the party soon began to institute a series of observations upon Edward and Marian’s fellow-passengers, as they came on board, one after another, in successive batches on the little tender.

‘Just look at that brown young man!’ Nora cried, in a suppressed whisper, as a tall and gentlemanly looking mulatto walked up the gangway from the puffing tug. ‘We shall be positively overwhelmed with coloured people, I declare! There are three Hottentot Venuses down in the saloon already, bound for Haiti; and a San Domingo general, as black as your hat; and a couple of walnut-coloured old gentlemen going to Dominica. And now, here’s another regular brown man coming on board to us. What’s his name, I wonder? Oh, there it is, painted as large as life upon his portmanteau! “Dr Whitaker, Trinidad.” Why, my dear, he’s actually going the whole way with us. And a doctor too! goodness gracious. Just fancy being attended through fever by a man of that complexion!’

‘Oh, hush, Nora!’ Marian cried, in genuine alarm. ‘He’ll overhear you, and you’ll hurt his feelings. Besides, you oughtn’t to talk so about other people, whether they hear you or whether they don’t.’

‘Hurt his feelings, my dear! O dear, no, not a bit of it. I know them better than you do. My dear Marian, these people haven’t got any feelings; they’ve been too much accustomed to be laughed at from the time they were babies, ever to have had the chance of acquiring any.’

‘Then the more shame,’ Edward interrupted gravely, ‘to those who have laughed them out of all self-respect and natural feeling. But I don’t believe, for my part, there’s anybody on earth who doesn’t feel hurt at being ridiculed.’

‘Ah, that’s so nice of you to think and talk like that, Mr Hawthorn,’ Nora answered frankly; ‘but you won’t think so, you know, I’m quite certain, after you’ve been a month or two on shore over in Trinidad.’

‘Good-morning, ladies and gentlemen,’ the captain of the _Severn_ put in briskly, walking up to them as they lounged in a group on the clean-scrubbed quarter-deck—‘good-morning, ladies and gentlemen. Fine weather to start on a voyage. Are you all going with us?—Why, bless my heart, if this isn’t General Ord! I sailed with you, sir, fifteen years ago now or more, must be, when I was a second officer in the P. and O. service.—You don’t remember me; no, I daresay not; I was only a second officer then, and you sat at the captain’s table. But I remember you, sir—I remember you. There’s more folks know Tom Fool, the proverb says, than Tom Fool knows; and no offence meant, general, nor none be taken. And so you’re going out with us now, are you?—going out with us now? Well, you’ll sit at the captain’s table still, sir, no doubt, you and your party; and as I’m the captain now, you see, why, I shall have a better chance than I used to have of making your acquaintance.’

The captain laughed heartily as he spoke at his own small wit; but General Ord drew himself up rather stiffly, and answered in a somewhat severe tone: ‘No, I’m not going out with you this journey myself; but my daughter, who has lately married, and her husband here, are just setting out to their new home over in Trinidad.’

‘In Trinidad,’ the jolly captain echoed heartily—‘in Trinidad! Well, well, beautiful island, beautiful, beautiful! Must mind they don’t take too much mainsheet, or catch yellow Jack, or live in the marshes, that’s all; otherwise, they’ll find it a delightful residence. I took out a young sub-lieutenant, just gazetted, last voyage but two, when they had the yellow Jack awfully bad up at cantonments. He was in a deadly funk of the fever all the way, and always asking everybody questions about it. The moment he landed, who does he go and meet but an old Irish friend of the family, who was going home by the return steamer. The Irishman rushes up to him and shakes his hand violently and says he—“Me dear fellow,” says he, “ye’ve come in the very nick of time. Promotion’s certain; they’re dying by thousands. Every day, wan of ’em drops off the list; and all ye’ve got to do is to hould yer head up, keep from drinking any brandy, and don’t be frightened; and, be George, ye’ll rise in no time as fast as I have; and I’m going home this morning a colonel.”’

The general shuddered slightly. ‘Not a pleasant introduction to the country, certainly,’ he answered in his driest manner. ‘But I suppose Trinidad’s fairly healthy at present?’

‘Healthy! Well, yes, well enough as the tropics go, general.—But don’t you be afraid of your young people. With health and strength, they’ll pull through decently, not a doubt of it.—Let me see—let me see; I must secure ’em a place at my own table. We’ve got rather an odd lot of passengers this time, mostly; a good many of ’em have got a very decided touch o’ the tar-brush about ’em—a touch o’ the tar-brush. There’s that woolly-headed nigger fellow over there who’s just come aboard; he’s going to Trinidad too; he’s a doctor, he is. We mustn’t let your people get mixed up with all that lot, of course; I’ll keep ’em a place nice and snug at my own table.’

‘Thank you,’ the general said, rather more graciously than before.—‘This is my daughter, captain, Mrs Hawthorn. And this is my son-in-law, Mr Edward Hawthorn, who’s going out to accept a district judgeship over yonder in Trinidad.’

‘Ha!’ the jovial captain answered in his bluff voice, doffing his hat sailor-fashion to Marian and Edward. ‘Going to hang up the niggers out in Trinidad, are you, sir? Going to hang up the niggers! Well, well, they deserve it all, every man-Jack of ’em, the lazy beggars; they all deserve hanging. A pestering set of idle, thieving, hulking vagabonds, as ever came around to coal a ship in harbour! I’d judge ’em, I would—I’d judge ’em.’ And the captain pantomimically expressed the exact nature of his judicial sentiments by pressing his own stout bull-neck, just across the windpipe, with his sturdy right hand, till his red and sunburnt face grew even redder and redder with the suggested suspension.

Edward smiled quietly, but answered nothing.

‘Well, sir,’ the captain went on as soon as he had recovered fully from the temporary effects of his self-inflicted strangulation, ‘and have you ever been in the West Indies before, or is this your first visit?’

‘I was born there,’ Edward answered. ‘I’m a Trinidad man by birth; but I’ve lived so long in England, and went there so young, that I don’t really recollect very much about my native country.’

‘Mr Hawthorn’s father you may know by name,’ the general said, a little assertively. ‘He is a son of the Honourable James Hawthorn, of Agualta Estate, Trinidad.’

The captain drew back for a moment with a curious look, and scanned Edward closely from head to foot with a remarkably frank and maritime scrutiny; then he whistled low to himself for a few seconds, and seemed to be ruminating inwardly upon some very amusing and unusual circumstance. At last he answered slowly, in a more reserved and somewhat embarrassed tone: ‘O yes, I know Mr Hawthorn of Agualta—know him personally; well-known man, Mr Hawthorn of Agualta. Member of the Legislative Council of the island. Fine estate, Agualta—very fine estate indeed, and has one of the largest outputs of rum and sugar anywhere in the whole West Indies.’

‘I told you so,’ Harry Noel murmured parenthetically. ‘The governor is coiny. They’re all alike, the whole breed of them. Secretiveness large, acquisitiveness enormous, benevolence and generosity absolutely undeveloped. When you get to Trinidad, my dear Teddy, bleed him, bleed him!’

‘Well, well, Mrs Hawthorn,’ the captain said gallantly to Marian, who stood by rather wondering what his sudden change of demeanour could possibly portend, ‘you shall have a seat at my table—certainly, certainly; you shall have a seat at my table. The general’s an old passenger of mine on the P. and O.; and I’ve known Mr Hawthorn of Agualta Estate ever since I first came upon the West India liners.—And the young lady, is she going too?’ For Captain Burford, like most others of his craft, had a quick eye for pretty faces, and he had not been long in picking out and noticing Nora’s.

‘This is Miss Dupuy of Orange Grove,’ Marian said, drawing her young companion a little forward. ‘Perhaps you know her father too, as you’ve been going so long to the island.’

‘What! a daughter of Mr Theodore Dupuy of Orange Grove and Pimento Valley,’ the captain replied briskly. ‘Mr Theodore Dupuy’s daughter! Lord bless my soul, Mr Theodore Dupuy! O yes, don’t I just know him! Why, Mr Dupuy’s one of the most respected and well-known gentlemen in the whole island. Been settled at Orange Grove, the Dupuys have, ever since the old Spanish occupation.—And so you’re taking out Mr Theodore Dupuy’s daughter, are you, Mrs Hawthorn? Well, well! Taking out Mr—Theodore Dupuy’s daughter. That’s a capital joke, that is.—O yes, you must all sit at the head of my table, ladies; and I’ll do everything that lies in my power to make you comfortable.’

Meanwhile, Edward and Harry Noel had strolled off for a minute towards the opposite end of the deck, where the mulatto gentleman was standing quite alone, looking down steadily into the deep-blue motionless water. As the captain moved away, Nora Dupuy gave a little start, and caught Marian Hawthorn’s arm excitedly and suddenly. ‘Look there!’ she cried—‘oh, look there, Marian! Do you see Mr Hawthorn? Do you see what he’s doing? That brown man over there, with the name on the portmanteau, has turned round and spoken to him, and Mr Hawthorn’s actually held out his hand and is shaking hands with him!’

‘Well,’ Marian answered in some surprise, ‘I see he is. Why not?’

‘Why not? My dear, how can you ask me such a question! Why, of course, because the man’s a regular mulatto—a coloured person.’

Marian laughed. ‘Really, dear,’ she answered, more amused than angry, ‘you mustn’t be so entirely filled up with your foolish little West Indian prejudices. The young man’s a doctor, and no doubt a gentleman in education and breeding, and, for my part, I can’t for the life of me see why one shouldn’t shake hands with him as well as with any other respectable person.’

‘Oh, but Marian, you know—a brown man!—his father and mother!—the associations—no, really!’

Marian smiled again. ‘They’re coming this way,’ she said; ‘we shall soon hear what they’re talking about. Perhaps he knows something about your people, or Edward’s.’

Nora looked up quite defiant. ‘About _my_ people, Marian!’ she said almost angrily. ‘Why, what can you be thinking of! You don’t suppose, do you, that _my_ people are in the habit of mixing casually with woolly-headed mulattoes?’

She had hardly uttered the harsh words, when the mulatto gentleman walked over towards them side by side with Edward Hawthorn, and lifted his hat courteously to Marian.

‘My wife,’ Edward said, as Marian bowed slightly in return: ‘Dr Whitaker.’

‘I saw your husband’s name upon his boxes, Mrs Hawthorn,’ the mulatto gentleman said with a pleasant smile, and in a soft, clear, cultivated voice; ‘and as my father has the privilege of knowing Mr Hawthorn of Agualta, over in Trinidad, I took the liberty of introducing myself at once to him. I’m glad to hear that we’re to be fellow-passengers together, and that your husband has really decided to return at last to his native island.’

‘Thank you,’ Marian answered simply. ‘We are all looking forward much to our life in Trinidad.’ Then, with a little mischievous twinkle in her eye, she turned to Nora. ‘This is another of our fellow-passengers, Dr Whitaker,’ she said demurely—‘my friend, Miss Dupuy, whom I’m taking out under my charge—another Trinidadian: you ought to know one another. Miss Dupuy’s father lives at an estate called Orange Grove—isn’t it, Nora?’

The mulatto doctor lifted his hat again, and bowed with marked politeness to the blushing white girl. For a second, their eyes met. Dr Whitaker’s looked at the beautiful half-childish face with unmistakable instantaneous admiration. Nora’s flashed a little angrily, and her nostrils dilated with a proud quiver; but she said never a word; she merely gave a chilly bow, and didn’t attempt even to offer her pretty little gloved hand to the brown stranger.

‘I have heard of Miss Dupuy’s family by name,’ the mulatto answered, speaking to Marian, but looking askance at the same time toward the petulant Nora. ‘Mr Dupuy of Orange Grove is well known throughout the island. I am glad that we are going to have so much delightful Trinidad society on our outward passage.’

‘Thank him for nothing,’ Nora murmured aside to Harry Noel, moving away as she spoke towards Mrs Ord at the other end of the vessel. ‘What impertinence! Marian ought to have known better than to introduce me to him.’

‘It’s a pity you don’t like the coloured gentleman,’ Harry Noel put in provokingly. ‘The appreciation is unfortunately not mutual, it seems. He appeared to me to be very much struck with you at first sight, Miss Dupuy, to judge by his manner.’

Nora turned towards him with a sudden fierceness and haughtiness that fairly surprised the easy-going young barrister. ‘Mr Noel,’ she said in a tone of angry but suppressed indignation, ‘how dare you speak to me so about that negro fellow, sir—how dare you? How dare you mention him and me in the same breath together? How dare you presume to joke with me on such a subject? Don’t speak to me again, pray. You don’t know what we West Indians are, or you’d never have ventured to utter such a speech as that to any woman with a single drop of West Indian blood in her whole body.’

Harry bowed silently and bit his lip; then, without another word, he moved back slowly toward the other group, and allowed Nora to join Mrs Ord by the door of the companion-ladder.

In twenty minutes more, the first warning bell rang for those who were going ashore, to get ready for their departure. There was the usual hurried leave-taking on every side; there was the usual amount of shedding of tears; there was the usual shouting and bawling, and snorting and puffing; and there was the usual calm indifference of the ship’s officers, moving up and down through all the tearful valedictory groups, as through an ordinary incident of humanity, experienced regularly every six weeks of a whole lifetime. As Marian and her mother were taking their last farewells, Harry Noel ventured once more timidly to approach Nora Dupuy and address a few parting words to her in a low undertone.

‘I’m sorry I offended you unintentionally just now, Miss Dupuy,’ he said quietly. ‘I thought the best apology I could offer at the moment was to say nothing just then in exculpation. But I really didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, and I hope we still part friends.’

Nora held out her small hand to him a trifle reluctantly. ‘As you have the grace to apologise,’ she said, ‘I shall overlook it. Yes, we part friends, Mr Noel; I have no reason to part otherwise.’

‘Then there’s no chance for me?’ Harry asked in a low tone, looking straight into her eyes, with a searching glance.

‘No chance,’ Nora echoed, dropping her eyes suddenly, but speaking very decidedly. ‘You must go now, Mr Noel; the second bell’s ringing.’

Harry took her hand once more, and pressed it faintly. ‘Good-bye, Miss Dupuy,’ he said—‘good-bye—for the present. I daresay we shall meet again before long, some day—in Trinidad.’

‘O no!’ Nora cried in a low voice, as he turned to leave her. ‘Don’t do that, Mr Noel; don’t come out to Trinidad. I told you it’d be quite useless.’

Harry laughed one of his most teasing laughs. ‘My father has property in the West Indies, Miss Dupuy,’ he answered in his usual voice of light badinage, paying her out in her own coin; ‘and I shall probably come over some day to see how the niggers are getting on upon it—that was all I meant. Good-bye—good-bye to you.’

But his eyes belied what he said, and Nora knew they did as she saw him look back a last farewell from the deck of the retreating little tender.

‘Any more for the shore—any more for the shore?’ cried the big sailor who rang the bell. ‘No more.—Then shove off, cap’n’—to the skipper of the tug-boat.

In another minute, the great anchor was heaved, and the big screw began to revolve slowly through the sluggish water. Next moment, the ship moved from her moorings and was fairly under weigh. Just as she moved, a boat with a telegraph-boy on board rowed up rapidly to her side, and a voice from the boat shouted aloud in a sailor’s bass: ‘_Severn_, ahoy!’

‘Ahoy!’ answered the ship’s officer.

‘Passenger aboard by the name of Hawthorn? We’ve got a telegram for him.’

Edward rushed quickly to the ship’s side, and answered in his loudest voice: ‘Yes. Here I am.’

‘Passenger aboard by the name of Miss Dupuy? We’ve got a telegram for her.’

‘This is she,’ Edward answered. ‘How can we get them?’

‘Lower a bucket,’ the ship’s officer shouted to a sailor.—‘You can put ’em in that, boy, can’t you?’

The men in the boat caught the bucket, and fastened in the letters rudely with a stone taken from the ballast at the bottom. The screw still continued to revolve as the sailors drew up the bucket hastily. A little water got over the side and wet the telegrams; but they were both still perfectly legible. Edward unfolded his in wondering silence, while Marian looked tremulously over his right shoulder. It contained just these few short words:

‘_From_ HAWTHORN, _Trinidad_, to HAWTHORN, R.M.S. _Severn_, _Southampton_.—For God’s sake, don’t come out. Reasons by letter.’

Marian gazed at it for a moment in speechless surprise; then she turned, pale and white, to her husband beside her. ‘O Edward,’ she cried, looking up at him with a face of terror, ‘what on earth can it mean? What on earth can they wish us not to come out for?’

Edward held the telegram open before his eyes, gazing at it blankly in inexpressible astonishment. ‘My darling,’ he said, ‘my own darling, I haven’t the very remotest notion. I can’t imagine why on earth they should ever wish to keep us away from them.’

At the same moment, Nora held her own telegram out to Marian with a little laugh of surprise and amusement. Marian glanced at it and read it hastily. It ran as follows:

‘_From_ DUPUY, _Trinidad_, to MISS DUPUY, R.M.S. _Severn_, _Southampton_.—Don’t come out till next steamer. On no account go on board the _Severn_.’

TWO EVENINGS WITH BISMARCK.

IN TWO PARTS.—PART II.

Another week has elapsed. The month of May has arrived in all its glory and beauty. The magnificent trees in the park of the Diet House form a leafy arched avenue, and amid the branches of the venerable six hundred year old yew-tree, beneath which Mendelssohn composed the overture to his _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, feathered songsters of every kind hold their gay revels. The spring, that wonderful season of longing and restless desire, is, as usual, warring successfully against the stern duties of the members of parliament. Even the hardest workers among them, Prince Albrecht of Prussia, Moltke, and Steinmetz, ay, even those most persevering of deputies, Wachler and Count Rennard, can no longer remain indoors. The outcry about the bad ventilation of the House is only a pretext to cover their retreat with honour, and all gradually assemble beneath the giant yew, there to listen to the gay tales and rare bits of scandal with which Hennig and Unruh regale the assembly. Last year, when, during the intense heat, we sat out here in the cool _pavillon_, discussing the wine duties with the help of some bottles of rare old Rhenish, President Simson had a large telegraphic bell placed on the top of the kiosk, which by its sudden peal so startled our unconscious souls, like the voice of the last trumpet, that it completely scared away the god Bacchus from these precincts for ever.

It was therefore with intense relief that all looked forward to the legitimate parliamentary recreation of the week, Prince Bismarck’s Saturday evening. This time, no constables were visible. Immediately on entering the first reception room up-stairs, we saluted his lady, and were welcomed by Bismarck himself, who at once entered into conversation with us, only stopping occasionally to shake hands with some fresh arrival. The crush gradually began to lessen as the visitors dispersed into the various rooms. We were still standing in the anteroom, near the great sideboard; the moment seemed favourable for ascertaining the meaning of the stuffed hare; I therefore asked Bismarck why it was placed there.

‘Oh, have you not noticed that this hare is brunette?’

‘Brunette?’

‘Yes. Look here—he has a dark-brown head and back, whereas he ought by rights to be yellow. I ought to place an ordinary hare beside him to show off this natural curiosity. He was the only “brunette” hare among the fifteen hundred we killed that day.’

Most of the guests had gone to the billiard-room. There were not so many present on this Saturday evening; a festival in commemoration of the foundation of the Law Union had drawn nearly all the legal celebrities of the House to Charlottenburg.

But what interested me most was Bismarck’s own room, the door of which stood open.

‘May one enter?’ I ask of one of the house-servants.

‘Certainly, sir,’ is the reply.

And crossing the threshold, I glance round the room. In the centre, though somewhat nearer the two windows that lead on to the terrace, stands Bismarck’s writing-table, a sort of long desk, provided on each side with open pigeon-holes. The chair, without any lean, is a large round seat of massive oak, which turns either way. On the right-hand side are the shelves that hold the public documents. There were none there now, but on the floor below lay several locked portfolios. The light falls from the left, gently softened by white and crimson silk curtains. Innumerable white gloves, and swords enough to arm a whole division of generals, are piled up on a table facing the door through which we entered. On the escritoire beside it, the Chancellor’s various civil, military, and official head-coverings form quite a small exhibition. The other half of the wall is completely filled up by a couch of colossal dimensions, covered with blue brocade. It is almost as broad as it is long, without back or side cushions, only at the head a round bolster is placed, on which reposes an embroidered cushion with this inscription: ‘In Memory of the Year 1866.’

The pictures on the walls consist of life-size engravings, portraits of the great _Kurfürst_ Frederick the Great, Frederick-William III., and King William. Beside this latter hangs an engraving of Murillo’s Madonna, looking somewhat surprised at her worldly companions. Finally, on the wall behind the writing-table hangs a charming Swiss cuckoo-clock; while just below the portrait of Frederick the Great, and so placed that Bismarck can see it when he reposes on the couch, hangs a small picture of his mother, whose memory, as is well known, he treasures above everything else. Even taken from the simple stand-point of man to man, it is satisfactory to find, by the various letters from among his private papers that have of late years been made public, such a fund of kindly feeling, such a bright and hearty nature, as one would hardly have looked for in this daring and indomitable combatant.

‘In spite of all the hunting and raking-up of anecdotes of Bismarck’s past life,’ said a Saxon deputy, ‘that has been going on now for some years both by Sunday and week-day sportsmen, from the big journals down to the tiny pamphlets, not one half of what he has really done, said, and written, will ever be collected together; while those who are at all honest will frankly admit that it would be impossible to reproduce faithfully the peculiar form and fresh originality of his sayings. Thus, I heard rather a characteristic anecdote of his meeting with Councillor P——, from the Saxon town of M——, at the Berlin Railway Station in Leipzig. Bismarck—it was in 1863—had been with the king in Carlsbad, and was travelling back to Berlin, viâ Leipzig, in strict incognito. It was noon, and there was more than an hour to wait before the next train started. Our friend Councillor P——, who had been told by the station-master who his travelling companion was, went into the reserved dining saloon—Bismarck did the same—and soon the two merged into amicable converse, while discussing their respective luncheons. Bismarck praised the beauty of Saxony and the bravery and industry of its people. Councillor P——, who did not belong to the blind worshippers of Herr von Beust, asked his _vis-à-vis_ what he thought of the Saxon government and policy. His _vis-à-vis_ continued his panegyric. P——, determined not to be outdone, launched forth into raptures about Prussia—not, however, including the Berliners.

“Well, you are quite right,” said Bismarck. “I daresay you have heard the story of the Alpine host, who, after pointing out the glories of his native land, asked a Berlin youth whether they had such mountains as that in Berlin. ‘No,’ he replied; ‘we have not got such mountains; but if we _had_, they would be far finer than these!’ Much the same thing happened to me. I was living in Hanover for some time, and one day I went, with a friend from Berlin, along the beautiful Herrenhauser Allee. ‘Look at those magnificent trees!’ I said. ‘Where?’ was the answer, as he looked round with contempt. ‘You mean _these_? Why, they are not to be compared to the Linden of Berlin!’ The following year, I walked with my friend Unter den Linden. They had their usual summer aspect, which, as I daresay you all know, is sufficiently dreary and melancholy. ‘Well, what say you now?’ I asked my companion. ‘Do you still maintain that this is superior to the Herrenhauser Allee?’ ‘Oh, leave me in peace with your Herrenhausers and Allees,’ he cried testily; ‘it always makes me savage when I am shown anything better than we have in Berlin.’ There you have a true picture of the Berliner.”

‘Bismarck then went on discussing the lower classes in Berlin, especially the porters, and lamented that it was found almost impossible to make them trustworthy. “You should do the same as we do,” replied the councillor—“swear the men in before they take service.”

“Oh,” replied Bismarck, laughing, “that would not hold water with us.”

‘Meanwhile, the doors of the reserved dining-room were thrown open to the great travelling public, who began to assemble preparatory to the starting of the train. Among others, the well-known Leipzig _colporteur_, Hartwig, utilised the moments to find a fresh market for his wares. He had evidently also another motive—which he kept out of sight—and that was to give the Prussian minister some unvarnished truths and a piece of his mind about his political views, for of course he knew Bismarck by sight.’

Now first I noticed the gigantic size of the bearskin that lay beneath the billiard-table—it is almost as long as the table itself. Bismarck shot the animal in Russia, after having watched and waited for it five nights running.

The mighty Nimrod now joined our party, and leant up against the billiard-table while talking. He then sat down _on_ the table, and while keeping up a lively conversation with Hennig and the rest of us about various points on the interior economy of the Diet, he every now and then threw a billiard ball behind him, so that each time it hit the two others that were on the table. After the discussion had lasted some time, Bismarck said: ‘But come, gentlemen; I think it is time we had some refreshment.’ So saying, he led the way, and we again passed through the chamber with the yellow Gobelins, full of Chinese figures, animals, and pagodas, on to the dining saloon. On our way, we passed Deputy Kratz in deep confab with General von Steinmetz. They were still continuing the discussion on the theory of light, with which the worthy judge and the victor of Trautenau had entertained the House for over an hour a few days ago.

Close beside them stood the Hessian deputy Braun, talking to Admiral Jachmann. It is incredible what an inordinate desire this inland resident, who has never even heard the sound of the sea, has for occupying himself with naval matters. Perhaps these constant discussions with landsmen, who cannot know much of nautical affairs, are the cause of the somewhat stereotyped smile that curves the worthy admiral’s otherwise handsome lips. This time, however, he did _not_ smile. Braun had asked him the following simple but weighty question: ‘The papers and telegraphs have just informed us of the arrival at Kiel, from England, of the _König Wilhelm_, the largest armour-plated ship of the North German navy. They write in such a cool, indifferent sort of manner, as if it were quite an everyday affair for us to pay out over three million dollars for such a vessel. Has Your Excellency already inspected the vessel?’ ‘No; I will do so to-morrow.’ And with this answer the deputy had to be satisfied.

As I passed on, I again came across Bismarck, this time in conversation with Albrecht, the town recorder of Hanover, who in the previous year had had a sharp tussle about his right to the ox with which the guild of butchers have, from time immemorial, every year presented the recorder. The much-vexed question, _re_ the ox, was happily not now in dispute, Albrecht having manfully fought for and gained his cause. But the point under discussion was evidently nearly as delicate and intricate, for I heard Bismarck say: ‘Well, both you and I have lost some hair—we have therefore _one_ very important point in common—and ought to understand one another all the better.’

The table in the dining saloon was again covered with all the cold delicacies of a true North German kitchen; and again, like last Saturday, a small side-table had been taken possession of by some of the deputies, among whom I noticed the gentlemanly police superintendent Devens of Cologne; the two noble sons of the soil, Evelt and Hosius; and the honest but somewhat moody Günther of Saxony.

Ere long, Bismarck came up and seated himself between Devens and Evelt, chatting pleasantly with them, while enjoying the cool and fragrant _Maitrank_.

‘How do you like my _Maitrank_?’ he asked.

‘It is perfect, Your Excellency!’

‘Yes; I rather pride myself on it. Curiously enough, during all my student days I never found any _Waldmeister_ further south than Heidelberg. Our South German brethren were first initiated into the delights of the _Maitrank_ by us northerners. You from Hohenzollern, for instance, have no _Waldmeister_, I suppose?’

‘O yes, Your Excellency,’ replied Evelt. ‘It grows splendidly with us. But I also may lay claim to the honour of having introduced the Swabians to its magic powers.’

‘You have to thank your sterile Alps for that,’ returned Bismarck. ‘Were they more sheltered, no _Waldmeister_ would grow there.’

A group of deputies and several waiters with plates and glasses now separated me from the speakers. When I again rejoined the party, Bismarck was telling them the following story of General von Strotha: ‘He was at that time living quietly at Frankfort, in command of the allied garrison there, when one day he received a telegram from the then Minister President, Count von Brandenburg, to come at once to Berlin and report himself to the minister. Strotha starts for Berlin in hot haste, and thence immediately goes to Brandenburg.

“I have sent for Your Excellency to ask you to become War Minister,” said Brandenburg.

“Me!” exclaimed Strotha. “For heaven’s sake, Your Excellency, what made you think of such a thing? I am not in any way fitted for the post.”

“I am afraid that can’t be helped. See; here is the order from His Majesty the king, requiring that you shall be War Minister.”

‘Strotha reads the order, looking greatly troubled, and then says: “Of course, if His Majesty commands, I must obey.”

“Well, then, my dear colleague,” continues Brandenburg, “you will attend the cabinet council at ten to-day.”

“Oh, I could not possibly do that.”

“I am afraid you will have to. See; here is another order from His Majesty, expressly desiring you to undertake the War Department in the cabinet.”

“Then I must of course obey,” said the new War Minister, with a deep sigh of dejection.

‘He is just about to leave, in order to prepare himself for his presumable maiden speech, when Brandenburg stops him: “I suppose you know, general, that you must appear in _mufti_ [plain clothes] at the council?”

‘Strotha stood speechless with amazement. This was the finishing stroke. “I have none!” he at last managed to stammer forth.

“Well, you will have to get yourself some by ten o’clock—such are the king’s commands.”

“Then of course I must obey,” replied Strotha, leaving the room in a very crestfallen manner.

‘But he faced his difficulty valiantly. Jumping into a cab, he drove off to the Mühlendamm, where all the old Jews congregate; and at ten o’clock precisely, a strange figure, with an enormously nigh collar and coat sleeves hanging right over his hands, was seated at the ministerial table—this was the new War Minister!’

Günther, who never could hide what he felt, and who generally looked at the dark side of most things, had followed the Chancellor’s story with undisguised amusement. The circle became every moment more gay and lively.

‘Take care, Günther,’ cried Mosig von Ahrenberg, holding up his finger in mock-threat; ‘I see plainly that Bismarck has completely bewitched you. I shall feel bound to make your apostasy known to a certain paper in Leipzig.’

Whilst this merry chaff was going on, Bismarck’s wife and her daughters had come in and had seated themselves at the table. The conversation now became more general; and soon after, as it was getting late, the party broke up. With a profound bow to the ladies, and a kindly shake of the hand from our genial host, we took our departure, well pleased with our second social evening at the hospitable dwelling of ‘Our Chancellor.’

A GOLDEN ARGOSY.

_A NOVELETTE._

BY FRED. M. WHITE.