“No, I know that, but still I’m always thinking it _might_ happen; and you know Von Braun’s ball went bang into the Empress’s teacup and flung the tea all over her gown. His mother was in tears when she heard of it.” As an alternative to indoor tennis, of which he speedily grows tired, the Emperor rides on rainy afternoons in the fine large _Reit-Bahn_ or riding-school of the royal stables, where one of the regimental bands is stationed in the gallery, and plays the latest operatic music as His Majesty and the adjutants canter round. To the despair of the Master of the Horse he insists on having the _Reit-Bahn_ also artificially heated. “The whole stable will be coughing to-morrow,” groan the unhappy officials as they ponder on the evil effects upon the horses of the warm atmosphere. But the Emperor likes to feel that he is “getting rid,” he says, “of a little bit of myself.” Once, as the riders were trotting round the _Bahn_, smoke was observed to be issuing from the coat-tails of one of the adjutants, who was carrying a box of matches in his pocket. This small incident amused the Emperor and restored his good-humour, always a little affected by bad weather. At supper he told the tale with all the dramatic exaggerations in which his soul delights, describing the young officer’s plight as “painful in the extreme.” Nothing pleases the Emperor more than to “chaff” his intimate friends about their private weaknesses. At Rominten he would tell interminable adventures of Admiral von Hollman--“Männchen,” as he used to call him--all hinging on this gallant old officer’s knack of losing his umbrella and his luggage. “He usually arrives at a state reception without a helmet, or something of that kind. Left it on the steamer or in the train; took it off to have a nap, and then forgot all about it,--and as for umbrellas! He buys them now by the gross. Finds it cheaper!” The old Admiral shakes his head, but looks a little guilty. “Yes, yes,” he says dubiously: “umbrellas! they are--they are--a little evasive. I think of them all the time, and then--in a moment--they are gone. It is marvellous, Your Majesty, marvellous how they disappear.” “Last Christmas,” says the Emperor, speaking to the table at large, “the Empress gives him a beautiful new silk umbrella, with his name and address on it in _large_ letters. What is the result? He sets off home taking his umbrella with him. How far do you think?” The Emperor thumps the table to emphasize the astonishing absent-mindedness of the admiral. “Why, he actually leaves it in the carriage that takes him to the station--leaves it in the carriage--loses it in the first half-hour of possession.” The Admiral wears a shamefaced smile like a guilty schoolboy. “But that wasn’t the end of it, Your Majesty--it was found again.” “Found again!” shouts the Emperor, bursting into a roar of laughter. “Yes, you found it waiting for you on the doorstep when you got home, didn’t you?”