‘Why, you have only to send the delinquents to the “North German Commission for the better Regulation of Trade”—that will settle them!’ But I hear Bismarck’s voice again close behind me. ‘Let us drink to the welfare of the old blue red and gold colours of the Hannovera of Göttingen!’ he called out to his old fellow-student, the Burgomaster Fromme of Lüneburg. And the two ‘old collegians,’ while emptying their glasses of sparkling Rhine wine, chat over the pleasant days of their youth. Even as far back as that time, whenever Bismarck was asked what he was studying, his answer invariably was: ‘Diplomacy.’ He was then a very slight overgrown young student, with a fair sprouting moustache—known everywhere by his magnificent Newfoundland dog, and much feared on account of his skill with the sword, having, while still an undergraduate, come off victor in several duels with members of opposition corps; though the scar on his left cheek bears testimony to the uncertainty attending the fate of even the most skilful of fencers. The antagonist who inflicted this ‘quart’ now enjoys the confidence of a great part of the North German population, so much so, that he was elected representative for the Diet. When he was first presented to Bismarck, the latter, pointing to the scar, asked: ‘Are you _the_ one?’ ‘Yes, Your Excellency.’ ‘Well, you certainly _did_ give it me rather hot.’ ‘Yes, Your Excellency—that was what you said at the time; but the “duel-book” did not concur in it, and decided you gave as good as you got.’ But those diplomatic studies at Göttingen have borne visible fruits. It is only a pity that the multifarious duties of his threefold office of minister, Chancellor, and brandy-distiller—for he has been a distiller for over twenty years—prevent the Prince from coming forward as the advocate of practical diplomacy. Many a professor’s chair would be open to him. The theme of the Prince’s diplomatic lecture this evening was ‘the blue-books,’ a subject he had already ventilated the day before in the Diet, urged thereto by Lasker. ‘Well, gentlemen, if you absolutely wish to have a “blue-book,” I will endeavour next year to provide one that will at least be harmless,’ he had said amid the laughter of the House. Now he gave us an example of the doubtful value of these collective despatches. ‘Say, for example, Lord Augustus Loftus comes to me and asks me whether I am disposed to hear a private letter from his minister, Lord Clarendon. He then reads me a short epistle in the noble lord’s own handwriting, and we talk the matter over quietly for about an hour. Five days after, he is again announced. This time he comes armed with a huge official despatch from the English Foreign Office. He commences to read. “I beg your pardon, Your Excellency!” I interrupt him, “but you told me all that last Monday.” “Yes, so I did; but now the despatch has to go into the blue-book.”