He enjoys a joke or witticism immensely, and leans back in his chair as he joins in the hearty peal about him. When cigars or cigarettes are handed round, he will take an occasional puff at one of the three or four cigarettes he allows himself during the evening, or sip at a glass of orangeade placed before him and filled from time to time. When he feels disposed he rises, and having shaken hands with his guests, now standing about him, retires into his workroom. A few moments later the guests disperse. Conversation, both in England and Germany, sometimes turns on the question whether or not the Emperor will be known to future generations as William "the Great." It is agreed on all sides that he will not take a place among the mediocrities or sink into oblivion. We have, though only negatively and indirectly, his own view of the matter, if, that is, it may be deduced from the fact that he has more than once tried to attach this _epitheton ornans_ to the memory of his grandfather. At Hamburg in 1891 he desired a statue to the Emperor William I to bear the inscription "William the Great." The cool common sense of the cautious Hamburgers refused to anticipate the decision of posterity and placed on the pedestal the simple words "William the First." In deference to the Emperor's well-known wishes, if not at his request, the Hamburg-Amerika line of steamers christened one of their ocean greyhounds _Wilhelm der Grosse_. The mere fact that people discuss the question in his lifetime is of happy augury for the Emperor. Perhaps some other epithet will be found for him. "Puffing Billy" is one of his titles among English officers, taken from the name given locally to Stephenson's first locomotive. But history has many ranks in her peerage and many epithets at her disposal--great, good, fair, lionhearted, silent--_that_ the Emperor will not have--and a host more. Maybe the greatest rulers were those whom history, as though in despair of finding a single term with which to do them justice, has refrained from decorating. Timur, Akbar, Attila, Julius Cæsar, Elizabeth, Victoria, Napoleon have no epithets, and need none. However, it is clear that a verdict on the Emperor's deserts is premature. Suppose him at the bar of history. The case is still proceeding, the evidence is not complete, counsel have not been heard, and--most obvious defect of any--the jury has not been impanelled. More than half a century has passed since the Emperor was born. How time flies! "Alas, alas, O Postumus, Postumus, The years glide by and are lost to us, lost to us."