He then mentioned that he had again complained to Treskow of the “short commons at the Royal table,” at which Treskow pulled a long face. “But if I am to work well I must have sufficient food. I cannot make a proper peace if I do not get enough to eat and drink. That’s a necessity of my trade, and therefore I prefer to dine at home.” The conversation then turned on the dead languages--I cannot now say how. “When I was in the first class at the high school,” he said, “I was able to write and speak Latin very well. I should now find it extremely difficult; and I have quite forgotten Greek. I cannot understand why people take so much trouble with these languages. It must be merely because learned men do not wish to lessen the value of what they have themselves so laboriously acquired.” I ventured to remind him of the mental discipline thus provided. The Chief replied, “Yes; but if you think Greek is a _disciplina mentis_, the Russian language is far better in that respect. It might be introduced instead of Greek--and it has immediate practical value in addition.” We then spoke of the way in which the Schleswig-Holstein question was treated by the Bundestag in the fifties. Count Bismarck-Bohlen, who had come in in the meantime, remarked that those debates must have been dull enough to send every one to sleep. “Yes,” said the Chief, “in Frankfurt they slept over the negotiations with their eyes open. Altogether it was a sleepy and insipid crowd, and things only became endurable after I had added the pepper.” He then told us a delightful story about Count Rechberg, who was at that time Austrian Minister to the Bundestag. “On one occasion he said something to me which I was obliged to answer very roughly. He replied that unless I withdrew my words it would be a case of going out on to the Bockenheimer Haide (a place where it was customary to settle affairs of honour). ‘I never withdraw my words,’ said I, carelessly, ‘so we must settle it in that way, and it occurs to me that the garden down stairs would be a very suitable place. But in order that people may not think that I represent my King pistol in hand, without further ceremony I shall write down here the cause of our quarrel. After you have read it over you will sign it, and thus testify to its correctness. In the meantime there is one of our officers lodging here who will oblige me, and you can choose one of your own officers.’ I rang the bell and sent word to the officer, requesting him to call upon me; and then went on writing while Rechberg strode up and down the room--and gluck, gluck, gluck (here the Minister mimicked the act of drinking) he swallowed one glass of water after another. Of course not because he was afraid, but because he was considering whether he ought not first to ask permission of his Government. I quietly continued to write. The officer came and said he would gladly oblige me. I begged him to wait a moment. On my