Adjoining the room occupied by the _Geheim Sekretäre_, is a narrow, one-windowed cell, with book shelves, newspaper cupboards, and other furniture, including the patient writing desk above mentioned, with its counterpart to the proverb that “Constant dropping wears the stone,” which has made the clearest and most lasting impression upon my memory, as it was assigned to me as my place of work. Next to this little chamber, which at the same time served as a thoroughfare to the larger room of the Secretaries, was a still smaller one, not more than two good paces in breadth, which was divided from the former by a thin wooden partition papered over. Within these narrow confines two _Räthe_ (Councillors), the antipodes of each other, Lothar Bucher and Aegidi, were from the summer of 1871 driven to seek elbow-room and a few feet of space to move about in, and, what is still stranger, they managed to find it. A full account must be given of the first mentioned of these. One day, when the secret history of the Bismarckian era can be written, the name of this little, unpretentious man in the modest cell will have to occupy a prominent, and perhaps, indeed, the first place among the Chancellor’s fellow-labourers. And with justice! I do not exaggerate when I assert that of the assistants who co-operated in the work of our political regenerator, Bucher was in every respect the most gifted and the best informed, while at the same time he was unquestionably the man of strongest character, conscientiousness, unselfishness and loyalty among them. He was a man of genuine distinction, and with his clear and fine understanding, his wealth of knowledge, his skill in political affairs, and his great power of work, he was, in short--to borrow the words in which our master once spoke of him to me--“a real pearl.” Space fails me to show this at due length, and indications and outlines, with a few illustrations of his worth, must suffice in some degree to give an idea of this rare character. His name will recur repeatedly in the diary, which will, as far as possible, make up for what may be lacking here.