The Emperor passes in a modest open carriage.  Next that happy
    12-year-old butcher-boy, all in white apron and turban, standing up
    & so proud!

How fast they drive-nothing like it but in London.  And the horses seem to be of very fine breed, though I am not an expert in horses & do not speak with assurance.  I can always tell which is the front end of a horse, but beyond that my art is not above the ordinary.

The “Court Gazette” of a German paper can be covered with a playing- card.  In an English paper the movements of titled people take up about three times that room.  In the papers of Republican France from six to sixteen times as much.  There, if a Duke’s dog should catch cold in the head they would stop the press to announce it and cry about it.  In Germany they respect titles, in England they revere them, in France they adore them.  That is, the French newspapers do.

    Been taken for Mommsen twice.  We have the same hair, but on
    examination it was found the brains were different.

On February 14th he records that Professor Helmholtz called, but unfortunately leaves no further memorandum of that visit.  He was quite recovered by this time, but was still cautioned about going out in the severe weather.  In the final entry he says: 

Thirty days sick abed—­full of interest—­read the debates and get excited over them, though don’t ‘versteh’.  By reading keep in a state of excited ignorance, like a blind man in a house afire; flounder around, immensely but unintelligently interested; don’t know how I got in and can’t find the way out, but I’m having a booming time all to myself.

Don’t know what a ‘Schelgesetzentwurf’ is, but I keep as excited over it and as worried about it as if it was my own child.  I simply live on the Sch.; it is my daily bread.  I wouldn’t have the question settled for anything in the world.  Especially now that I’ve lost the ’offentliche Militargericht circus’.  I read all the debates on that question with a never-failing interest, but all at once they sprung a vote on me a couple of days ago & did something by a vote of 100 to 143, but I couldn’t find out what it was.

CLXXIX

A dinner with William II.

The dinner with Emperor William II. at General von Versen’s was set for the 20th of February.  A few days before, Mark Twain entered in his note-book: 

    In that day the Imperial lion and the Democratic lamb shall sit down
    together, and a little General shall feed them.

Mark Twain was the guest of honor on this occasion, and was seated at the Emperor’s right hand.  The Emperor’s brother, Prince Heinrich, sat opposite; Prince Radolin farther along.  Rudolf Lindau, of the Foreign Office, was also present.  There were fourteen at the table, all told.  In his memorandum made at the time, Clemens gave no account of the dinner beyond the above details, only adding: