CHAPTER VIII
STORIES OF COURT LIFE
Musical Honours for Bertha—Bertha in a Temper—Luncheon at Court—A Tantalizing Procedure—A British Experience
"Call out the guards when Fraulein Krupp drives up," 'phoned the War Lord to the officer du jour from the Council Room between writing a treatise on a scrap-of-paper policy and making an outline of his speech, "An Appeal to Royalism," later delivered at Königsberg.
To have fifty men under a lieutenant exercise their feet on a given spot to the tune of fife and drum for the benefit of a person not born to the purple seems to William the highest honour conferable, a delusion bred by militarism. In the same spirit, the War Lord of Bismarck's time sent his Chancellor the patent of lieutenant-general. "That won't buy me a postage stamp," remarked Bismarck.
The Iron One would have preferred a pipe of tobacco, while his War Lord went about for three days patting himself on the back for his act of generosity and telling everybody within reach of the good fortune which, thanks to his grace, had befallen Bismarck, "really a mere civilian."
Bertha was too young to see the absurdity of the gratuitous manoeuvre, "the sausage intended to knock the side of bacon off the hook," as they say in Hamburg. It cost the War Lord nothing, made healthy exercise for the soldiers, and Bertha, still a child in experience and mode of thought, was impressed when Count Keller, pricking up his ears at the sound of the drum like an old army horse in a tinker's cart, shot out of his seat, raised his hat and bowed low.
"Signal honour, upon word, Fraulein; unprecedented—almost," he added in an undertone.
And Countess von Bassewitz, rolling her eyes in loyal ecstasy, squeezed Bertha's arm. "Majesty must be exceeding fond of his godchild to treat you like an equal—almost," she too added.
Drum and fife still made for ear-splitting discord when Count Keller handed Bertha out of the carriage. His lordship, by the way, was now congratulating himself on having been deprived of the seat of honour. Small doubt, if he had taken it, it would have been reported to the War Lord, and Majesty, bent on showering Royal honours on the commoner, would have been furious.