It is not a bed of roses to be Master of the Horse to the German Emperor. When the horses of the state carriage in which were seated Queen Alexandra and the Empress of Germany, frightened by the guns of the salute, refused to draw any farther, and threw the whole procession into momentary confusion, it was the unfortunate Master who had to bear the brunt of the blame. He was presented by the Kaiser to King Edward, whom he already knew, with the accompanying phrase “Here’s the man who made such a fearful bungle (_hat sich blamirt_) with his horses.” Evidently the Emperor thinks it better to go straight to the point, and that a lingering agony is worse than prompt dispatch. One of his characteristics is that he can explain everything to everybody; but there is one exception--the suffragettes. He has never been able to explain them. They baffle him entirely. At first he thought they were just disappointed spinsters, but in view of the number of married women in their ranks he was obliged to abandon this idea. Since then he has been groping in vain after a satisfactory solution. Some of them have been on board the _Hohenzollern_--not uninvited ones, of course--but a few of the charming English and American ladies who come to Kiel for the yacht-racing, who have sat on his decks and drank his tea, have shocked His Majesty by revealing themselves as sympathizers with the feminist suffrage movement. The Emperor becomes inarticulate at such moments. He wants to know “what in heaven women want with a vote?” “We are coming to Germany soon, Your Majesty,” smiled one fair lady, with the intrepidity of her sex; “we are going to help on the movement here.” “Here! There is no movement here, and if you begin burning houses and horsewhipping people in Germany, what do you think the police will do? They won’t send you flowers and newspapers and let you go free two days afterwards. We deal with people differently here, I can tell you.” It is of no use to explain to His Majesty the difference between militant and non-militant suffragists. This is a distinction too subtle for his mind, which sees them all tarred with the same brush, a menace to the peace of mankind, a clamorous nuisance, and a disturber of settled convictions and ideas. “Women should stay at home and look after their children,” is his last word on the subject; and if some one points out the flaws in this remedy, as for instance the thousands of women who have no children either of their own or some one else’s to see after, he takes refuge in ridicule. He is quite sure that a vote is a desperately bad thing for women. However, he allows women to be colonels, honorary colonels, in his army. The Empress, the Crown Princess, Princess Fritz, Princess August Wilhelm, and his young daughter each have their regiments, at the head of which on Parade days they ride in full uniform--though a long riding skirt is perhaps the least practical military garment that can be imagined.