It may interest my American readers to add that a few years ago Count Willie Douglas was the defendant in an extraordinary lawsuit at Berlin which had an American end to it. It seems that some thirty years ago a man of the name of Brandt died in the United States, leaving a fortune of several millions of dollars. Having no near relatives in America, the lawyers advertised for any heirs that he might have left behind him in Germany. The father of Count Douglas was at the time burgomaster of the little town of Aschersleben, and one day some of the inhabitants of the place bearing the name of Brandt placed a lot of papers in his hands, asking him to glance over them, and to see whether there was any truth in the statement that they were heirs to an immense fortune in America. The old count, in his capacity of burgomaster, declared that the affair looked to him very questionable, that he believed it was a mere swindle, and that there was surely nothing in it for them. Whether he returned to them the papers or not, is unknown, but he declared to the day of his death that he had restored them, whereas the Brandts of Aschersleben swear that he did not. Eventually, they brought suit against his son, not merely for the recovery of the documents, but likewise for the fortune, actually alleging that the latter had been appropriated by old Count Douglas, with the connivance of the late Prince Bismarck, who had received a large share of the plunder. It is scarcely necessary to state that they were non-suited. Emperor William's intimacy with Count and Countess Goertz may be said to be a sort of inherited friendship, the count's father, president of the Hessian House of Lords, and his consort, a princess of Sayn-Wittgenstein, having been the most intimate friends of Emperor and Empress Frederick, whose acquaintance they made through the late Grand Duke and Grand Duchess of Hesse. In order to show the affectionate relations existing between the parents of the kaiser and those of the present head of the ancient and illustrious house of Goertz, it is merely necessary to state that Professor Hintzpeter, who for a number of years directed the education of Emperor William and his brother Henry, and who, as their old tutor, retains much influence over both the imperial brothers, was selected by Emperor and Empress Frederick for the purpose, on the personal recommendation of the late Count and Countess Goertz, in whose family he had resided for a number of years as tutor to their son.