"So the empty echte-box taught me that every copper invested in Maxim guns means one dead—an enemy—hence, that I can't have enough Maxims. I want fifty, no, a hundred thousand."
Wilhelm smiled sardonically as he added: "I told Krupp he would lose his job unless he improves on Maxim and gets up a machine-gun as light as our army rifle and as easily fired. But that reminds me. I will go to Essen to-night to impress Bertha with her patriotic duties. You'll keep Krupp here."
"Frau Krupp," said Wilhelm, as he retired with the War Lady to the library of Villa Huegel.
"Bertha," she pleaded.
"Bertha is treating her Uncle Majesty very badly."
"May it please Your Majesty to say in which way I have offended?"
"In every way, in the surest way, in the most traitorous way!" cried the War Lord, trying to stab the floor with the point of his sheathed sword—a pitiable sight, since his poor left hand was powerless to move. "You are thinking of diverting the works from their sacred purpose: The Fatherland's defence."
Wilhelm struck a sentimental pose. "That's my reward for the love and care I bestowed on Frederick's child," he half monologued. "I educated her, exalted her above all women in her station of life, treated her like a child of my own, like my own sons and daughter. I have bestowed as much thought on Essen as on my army and navy; made her business and fortune the grandest of their kind; selected for her loving husband a man of surpassing capacities and gave her wedding the éclat of a royal function. Emperors, sultans and kings have bedizened her with courtesies and high decorations for my sake—the legend of 'the richest girl' has melted into 'the happiest woman in the world'—semper fidelis, and Madame, satiated and ungrateful, turns me the cold shoulder."
"Oh, Uncle Majesty, how can you say such things?"
"Bertha," cried the War Lord, laying his hand on her knee, "if you were not Frederick's daughter, were not rich beyond the dreams of avarice, I would ask: How much—how much did England pay you for deserting me and the Fatherland?"