But I ventured at the time to predict to my friend from the Antipodes that he would one day hear a good deal more of Czar Ferdinand than he had hitherto learned. For though he was then an unconsidered personage in English-speaking countries, he already enjoyed quite another reputation upon the Continent of Europe. I explained that he was half a Frenchman, and that in Paris, where notabilities are summed up more surely than anywhere else in the wide world, he was esteemed by no means a negligible quantity. Berlin, I said, had already put him down as a man with a price, and was only seeking to find how great was the price that must be paid. Austria—the new Austria, as represented by the clever heir to the throne, Franz Ferdinand—still looked askance at him, but was determined to make him a friend before he should have returned to amity with Russia. Russia had against his name the big black cross that is never obliterated in the secret archives of the White Empire, if the gossips of the Chancelleries are to be believed. Finally, in the Balkan States, still the slums of Europe by force of circumstances, he was the man to whom politicians looked for the next move. I little guessed what world-shaking consequences were to derive from that move. But I was able to say enough to my friend to awaken in him a new interest in the man whom his sturdy Colonialism led him to describe as an “evil-looking Dago.” Since then I have seen Ferdinand in varying circumstances, all of which have tended to increase my interest in him, without in any way adding to the sum of my liking for him, and all that he represents. I can see him now, riding into Sofia in triumph, with a wreath of green leaves around his head, and a band of victorious Bulgarian warriors as his escort. It was the first time Sofia had ever really acclaimed him, and he looked almost human as he acknowledged the ringing plaudits of a people that was wont to turn away its face as he rode by. I remember him, too, in Paris; at Longchamps the day of the Grand Prix. The elaborate precautions made that day by the police to prevent any of those untoward incidents of which he has lived in dread for a quarter of a century spoiled the whole day for the Parisians. It was impossible to move about the lawn without encountering cordons of gendarmes, placed there to afford a wide breathing space for the imitation Czar. I also saw him at Carlsbad, very much at home among the Austrians, who are really the people of his choice. He maintained a monstrous state there, and his comings and goings were as good as any spectacle I have seen. And always, wherever I encountered him, I heard stories. They were not nice stories, for he was the hero of them. But they represented the Continental opinion that he was distinctly a man of consequence; a man who would one day bulk big in the world’s history.