Dad supposed we would have to talk to the Emperor and the Prince through an interpreter, and we stood there waiting for some one to break the ice, when some one told the Emperor that an American gentleman and his boy wanted to pay their respects, and the Emperor, who wore an ordinary dark suit, with no military frills, took one of the young Princes he had been playing with across his knee and gave him a couple of easy spanks, in fun, and the whole family was laughing, and the spanked boy “tackled” the Emperor around the legs, below the knee, like a football player, and the other Princes pulled him off, and the Emperor came up to dad, smiling as though he was having the time of his life, and spoke to dad in the purest English, and said he was glad to see the “Bad Boy” man, because he had read all about the pranks of the Bad Boy, and bid dad welcome to Germany, and he didn't look sick at all. [Illustration: And so this is the champion little devil of America 357] Dad was taken all of a heap, and didn't know what to make of the German Emperor talking English, but when the ruler of Germany turned to me and said, “And so this is the champion little devil of America,” and patted me on the head, dad felt that he had struck a friend of the family, and he sat down with the Emperor and talked for half an hour, while the young Princes gathered around me, and we sat down on the floor and the boys got out their knives, and we played mumbletypeg on the carpet, just as though we were at home, and all the boys talked English, and we had a bully time. The princes had all read “Peck's Bad Boy” and I think the Emperor and Empress have encouraged them in their wickedness, for the boys told me of several tricks they had played on their father, the Emperor, which they had copied from the Bad Boy, and it made me blush when they told of initiating their father into the Masons, the way my chum and I initiated dad into the Masons with the aid of a goat.