Here, again, in front of one of the couches, lay the head and skin of a splendid elk, another trophy of Bismarck’s prowess as a sportsman. The walls of this room were hung with yellow Gobelins of ‘Chinese patterns,’ and furniture to correspond. By degrees, all the guests had gradually congregated in this room—deputies, councillors, ministers, admirals, secretaries, all mingled together. There was none of that reserve and strict etiquette with which ministers usually love to surround themselves, like a wall of division between them and the people’s representatives, none of that exclusiveness and national party spirit which, as a rule, is always present in the Diet. Very few uniforms were visible among the guests. The nooks and corners, in which, according to Bismarck’s own words, the great affairs of the state could be settled and arranged in five minutes, were now all filled with eager talkative groups of deputies and councillors, or the leaders of the different parties. The conversation in our neighbourhood was carried on in a pretty loud and easy tone and without any reserve; for there did not lurk here, as there does behind every door and in every retiring-room of the imperial parliament, some insidious reporter for the press. ‘Who is that stout gentleman yonder, with the very elaborate shirt-front, blue coat with brass buttons, and a huge and perfectly new order of the Eagle of the third class? He tries in vain to disguise his eastern origin.’ ‘Is it possible you do not know him?—this man, whom Bismarck’s son in his last pamphlet described as the greatest man of his century!—this father of millions of—railway shares! Do you really mean to say you do not know him? Well, then, my dear sir, you see before you Dr Strousberg, formerly Baruch Hirsch Strousberg, of the firm of Dr Ujest, Strousberg & Company!—Shall I introduce you?’ But the subject of this discourse had already joined that arch-satirist, Von Unruh Magdeburgh, the President of the Constitutional Prussian National Assembly. Beside him appeared the venerable head of Simson, the perpetual President of the German parliament. ‘Do you know the best way of enforcing respect into our noisy neighbours, the French?’ asked my _vis-à-vis_.—I thought of our millions of soldiers; but he continued: ‘You need only tell them that our three Presidents, Simson, Ujest, and Benningson, have twenty-seven children between them—nine each.’ Meanwhile, the servants again came round with refreshments for the guests; this time it was _Maitrank_,[1] in long Venetian glasses, and magnificent silver tankards filled with sparkling ale. But the heat still continued to increase, and became almost unbearable. Lasker was the first to move an amendment, to dispense with kid gloves; and like most of Lasker’s motions, this proposition found plenty of support among the deputies, and in this instance, even among the councillors.