The War Lord went to a bookshelf and pulled out a volume bound in red with atrocious gold decorations. "And Franz brags about having read every strategic work ever written," he commented.
"Majesty refers to Moltke's introduction of the Franco-Prussian war."
"Yes, but this isn't the volume. Can you quote from memory?"
"I will try my utmost, Your Majesty: 'The days are past when for dynastical ends armies went forth——'"
"Take an 'echte,' Edward's brand," said the War Lord.
There was a royal carriage at the station for Herr Ballin, and the royal coachman, keen for marks, waved his whip frantically to attract attention, and coin: the shipping king, emerging from a first-class compartment, affected not to see. Berlin has two kinds of cabs, and Ballin chose the Noah's Ark brand at threepence a mile. When he said "Schloss," the driver quizzed him curiously and decided at once to put him down at the kitchen entrance. "Must be a relative of some housemaid," he calculated, and could not understand at all why the royal carriage, though empty, drove plumb ahead of him when they reached the Schlossplatz. Of course the War Lord's livery meant to impress upon the Court Marshal that he had been on the spot.
Court Marshal von Liebenau left the reception to his aide and ran upstairs.
"With Majesty's permission. Regular Jewski, second-class cab. How long shall he wait?"
"Show him up instantly."
From this it may be gathered as from the scene witnessed at the Wilhelmstrasse, that waiting for Majesty is a punishment meted out on religious or other grounds.