"Listen to this: Bertha has fallen in love with Franz, sort of foster-brother, you know; they were children together."
"The electrical expert you told me about?"
"Precisely. But I won’t allow it; she might as well aspire to be wife No. 777 to our friend Abdul. But here comes the Baroness and pleads that the dear child may have her way, Franz being such a good young man; marriages are arranged in heaven, and her blessed Frederick will be tickled to death, etc., and more tommy rot like that."
"You don’t think Franz exactly the right person?"
"Phili," cried the War Lord, "if you were not such an old sinner and bald-headed and married and the father of children of marriageable age, I would order you to marry her."
"Another woman—are there none but women in the world?" groaned the ex-ambassador. "Besides, I have not the least talent for bigamy; try Kiderlen-Waechter."
"Would be the right sort, but he is nearly as old as you."
Once more Extase’s flank squeezed Phili. "I’ve got it," Wilhelm exclaimed suddenly. "When you get back home, browse for an hour or two on your card index, picking out the most desirable and up-to-date Benedicts in the thirties or thereabout, preferably men in the diplomatic service. Got everybody’s photo up there, haven’t you?"
"At Your Majesty’s service, the whole gallery."
"Pictures and personalia you’ll bring to the Neues Palais this afternoon, and maybe I will run over to Essen in the night to show the _crème de votre crème_ to the Baroness. This folly about Franz must be nipped in the bud, and with a girl the better and handsomer man does the trick every time."
The War Lord wheeled his horse around and trotted off in the direction of his residence. He never takes the trouble of telling his riding companions of his intentions. "Let them keep their eyes open and do as I do." The Queen herself fares no better when out riding with him. If her harness gets out of order or something of that sort, and she has to dismount, Wilhelm presses on unconcernedly. "Let the Master of Horse look after her."
Phili, arrived at his apartments, had no sooner got into his dressing-jacket of flowered silk, when the telephone rang furiously. "I command," admonished a hard voice.