Berlin is the only capital where the principal government offices are thus kept open for official business all night long, and the circumstance serves to furnish another illustration of the extraordinary activity, energy, and impatience of delay that distinguish the emperor, who wants everything done right away, without a moment’s waiting!

Emperor William gives the telephone companies at Berlin and at Potsdam far more trouble than any other of their subscribers, for when he telephones to any of the government departments, or to dignitaries or officials of high rank, the operators at the central office are under the strictest orders to abstain from listening to the conversation, and are forced to rise from their seats and remove to a distance from the wires.  Anyone caught disobeying in this particular is subject not only to dismissal, but to serious unpleasantness on the part of the police.

When the emperor rings up anybody, he does not announce his identity, taking it for granted that the tones of his voice are sufficiently well known to reveal it.  It has been noted, moreover, that he commences all his conversations over the wire with the pronoun “I,” while the verb “command,” either in the past or in the present tense, almost invariably follows.  This is quite sufficient to show who is talking.

William is the first sovereign of his line to accept the hospitality of his subjects.  Prior to his advent to the throne, such a thing as the monarch attending any private entertainment or dinner given by one of his lieges was altogether unknown.  Neither King Frederick-William III., King Frederick-William IV., nor old Emperor William, whose reigns extended over nearly ninety years of the nineteenth century, ever once honored any member of the nobility, no matter how high in rank, with their presence for a single evening or night, except during the course of the annual manoeuvres, when the monarch, as commander-in-chief of the army, was quartered in some chateau, much in the same manner as the officers of minor rank and the soldiers.  Emperor William, however, following the example of his British relatives, and greatly to the dismay of all the old-fashioned authorities on the etiquette of the Court of Berlin, has adopted the practice of inviting himself out to dinner in town, and to shooting-parties in the country, in a manner that is absolutely startling, even to his English relatives; for whereas the latter never dine out anywhere, unless the list of guests invited to meet them is previously submitted to them for consideration and revision, in order to avoid being brought into contact with people that are not congenial, the kaiser, on the other hand, when he hears that a dinner is about to be given by one of his friends or followers, frequently invites himself either at the last moment, an hour or two before the time fixed for the meal, or else arrives unannounced and uninvited, knowing full well that he will always be welcome, since his coming can only be regarded as a particular mark of imperial regard and favor toward the giver of the entertainment.