The kaiser shoots as a rule twice a day, at four in the morning, and four in the afternoon, the drive to the hunting-grounds often taking several hours, for most of them are at a considerable distance.  The various foresters’ lodges, even at the most remote portion of the estates, are connected by telephone with the imperial residence, and thus the emperor is able to know at midday where the game is likely to be most plentiful in the afternoon.

When the emperor is not shooting, he transacts business with his various military and civil secretaries, and long after his guests are asleep he himself is still at work, signing state papers or reading and annotating reports.  Indeed one of the most remarkable things about Emperor William is his apparent ability to do almost entirely without sleep.

On Sundays the emperor invariably makes a point of attending divine service at the Chapel of St. Hubert, opposite his residence, and subsequently is accustomed to walk to the Koenigshoehe, a neighboring hill on which he has built an observatory-tower about one hundred feet high, which commands a magnificent view of the surrounding forest, extending about twenty miles in every direction from the tower.  Curiously enough, wild boars are not found at Rominten; but the stags there are superb, and specimens turning the scales at a thousand pounds are the rule rather than the exception.

One of the features of the Theerbude is a goblet of the time of King Frederick-William III.  The vessel is held between the points of a couple of antlers, and it is only possible to drink out of it by squeezing one’s face between these two points.  The possessor of a rotund countenance experiences considerable difficulty in performing this feat, and is apt to spill the contents over himself, yet every one of the emperor’s guests has to submit to the ordeal, for an inscription on the goblet says that all persons attending shooting-parties at Rominten for the first time must empty the vessel of its contents,—­a pint bottle of champagne,—­at one draught, to the health of the sovereign.

So great are the quantities of game shot by the emperor and his guests at these shooting-parties that they very much exceed the needs for the consumption of the imperial household.  Formerly, it was the kaiser’s custom to distribute all the surplus among the various hospitals and charitable institutions; but since discovering that these gifts of game seldom reached the persons for whom they were destined, namely the inmates, but were monopolized by the staff and the attendants of the establishments, he has given orders that the game that is not needed for imperial consumption should be sold, and the money derived therefrom turned over to the funds of the hospitals and convalescent homes under the patronage of the crown.  That is why one so frequently sees in the great Central Market of Berlin, deer, stags, wild boars, etc., adorned with greenery, and with cards intimating that the quarry in question has been shot by his imperial majesty the kaiser.