Thus, some two or three winters ago, Princess Frederick-Leopold was almost drowned while out skating near Potsdam; she broke through the ice, was completely unconscious when miraculously rescued by four peasants who happened to be in the neighborhood, and was only brought back to life with the utmost difficulty.  The emperor and empress were naturally much concerned and distressed by this accident; but William’s sympathy changed into very serious anger when he learnt that the princess had remained so long under the ice and had been dependent on the courage and bravery of the peasants who rescued her, only because neither her husband nor any of the gentlemen of his household had been in attendance upon her.  In fact, she was quite alone with a lady-in-waiting, who lost her head, and was completely unable to offer any assistance when the mishap occurred.  The emperor also discovered that on the previous day the princess had, without any escort whatsoever, skated alone all the way from Potsdam to Brandenburg and back, a remarkable feat, calling for much endurance and attended by no little danger.  Now, as I have already stated, it is contrary to the rules of court etiquette and usage for any prince or princess of the blood to leave their residence, unattended, and it was on account of the infraction of this regulation that the kaiser sentenced both the prince and his consort to several weeks’ arrest in their palace.  It was this circumstance that gave rise to the ridiculous and sensational tale of the prince having been punished by the emperor in consequence of the latter having caught him in the act of beating the princess while in a fit of drunken fury.

Prince Frederick-Leopold is a great traveller, and has not only spent a considerable time in India as the guest of his brother-in-law, the Duke of Connaught, when the latter was in military command at Bombay, but, moreover, he has visited China and Japan, and devoted several months to a tour in the United States, which was wound up by some rather exciting events at Coney Island before his return home to Berlin.

[Illustration:  SCENE IN DUKE ERNEST GUNTHER’S QUARTERS After a drawing by Oreste Cortazzo]

Of the bachelorhood days of the kaiser’s other brother-in-law, Duke Ernest-Gunther of Schleswig-Holstein, already mentioned several times in these pages, especially in connection with the anonymous letter scandal, the least said the better.  A hard-drinking, dissipated, and somewhat coarse-mannered cavalry officer, he has often been a source of perpetual anger to the kaiser and of distress to his sister, the excellent empress.  He managed to get his name involved in all sorts of unsavory speculations on the stock exchange and in gambling scandals, invariably, it is true, as a victim; while at least three foreign footlight favorites were expelled from Germany by the police on account of the scandals created by his association with them.  On one occasion, he even had the audacity to appear