‘I still think that my polite sarcasm would have cut through the armour of any other man on earth. It was impossible to mistake my meaning, and he must have known that every man there knew it was _my_ boar that he had had his picture taken with and was still coolly keeping his boot upon. Possibly he decided in his own mind, then and there, that the time had come to extend the “Divine Right of the Hohenzollerns” to the hunting field. At any rate, he bowed graciously, thanked me warmly, and, pointing down to where I had stood in the picture, said he presumed it was “that little fellow with the deformed tusk.” ‘My head was humming from the shock of the effrontery, but I still have distinct recollection of the deliberate _sang-froid_ of the Kaiser’s manner as he directed someone to “mark that little boar with a twisted tusk, a gift from my good friend, Baron Y----, for mounting as a trophy.” I was a potential regicide for the next week or two, but my sense of humour pulled me up in the end. For, after all, what is the use of taking seriously a man who, for the sake of tickling his insatiate vanity by having his photograph taken with his foot on the head of a bigger pig than those in front of his hunting guests, commits an act that, were he anything less than an Emperor, would stamp him with every one of them as an out-and-out bounder? The memory of the thing makes me “see red” a bit even to-day if I let my mind dwell on it at all, but mingling with my resentment and mortification there is always a sort of sneaking admiration for the way the Kaiser (as the Yankees say) “got away with the goods.” The Hohenzollern--the trait is as evident in the Crown Prince as it is in his father--will always go forward instead of backward when it comes to being confronted with the consequences of either their bluffs or their breaks, and it is about time that the people in Germany, as well as the people outside of Germany, got this fact well in mind when dealing with them.’ These words were spoken before the Kaiser backed down when his Agadir bluff was called, but, generally speaking, I think the action of both father and son since then has been eloquent vindication of their truth.