On my calling upon Bucher again in the afternoon, he said: “I would beg one favour of you. There has been talk of somebody being again appointed here in connection with the press. I was to take over the work in the meantime, as he wrote me from Friedrichsruh. I said to Bülow, however, that that would not do, as it would first be necessary for me to arrange for the necessary information, and prepare the files, and that that would take some weeks. Probably Bülow has thereupon simply written to the Chief that I declined. Now, I would request you, when you are next called to the Prince, to take an opportunity of mentioning that you got part of the material for your last article from me, and that I have also been of assistance to you occasionally in other ways.” I promised to do this. The article which the Chief had ordered appeared in No. 22 of the _Grenzboten_, under the title of “Some Characteristics of the Minority in the Question of Tariff Reform.” During the next few months I was actively engaged in the _Grenzboten_ in supporting the Chief’s policy and attacking his Free Trade and Progressist opponents. I almost always took counsel with Bucher, who sometimes suggested the articles, and between us the Prince’s opponents came to hear many a bitter truth. On the 9th of June I met von Thile at the corner of the Flottwellstrasse and Lutzowstrasse. He stopped as he returned my greeting, and we dropped into conversation, in the course of which I also mentioned his retirement, and pointed to Keudell as the immediate cause of it. “He wished to be Secretary of State,” I said, “and then Minister.” “Your Excellency knows better than I do how incapable he was of filling such a post. He had an excellent eye for his own advantage, but he had no political ability.” “He was a maid of all work,” replied Thile, who then related to me the story of his resignation. “I sent a request to the Minister to let me know whether I should tender my resignation to him, which was the usual course, or to the Emperor. Keudell took this message to him. He then came to tell me, under instructions from the Minister, that I should apply to the Emperor in order to spare him, the Chief, the sight of my hateful countenance. The story then got abroad, and Bancroft repeated it to me, adding that it was ‘a message which no gentleman would have carried to another gentleman,’--and you know what a high regard he has for the Minister otherwise.” In conclusion, I begged Thile to permit me to call upon him at some future time. He said it would afford him great pleasure, and he gave me his address, No. 3, Flottwellstrasse. Next day I sent him a copy of the French translation of the Bismarck book, for which he thanked me in a very amiable letter. After careful consideration, I postponed my visit for a time. It would not have looked well had the Prince heard of it, as he is suspicious, and certainly not without reason, even of his friends.