KAISER JOKES AND STORIES.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 66, 17 March 1916, Page 3

KAISER JOKES AND STORIES.

An Englishman was hurrying through the streets of Berlin with a great bundle of books under his right arm and all sorts of parcels in both hands. As he, poised himself on the edge of the Friedrichstrasse preparatory to making a dash for the refuge in the centie he was arrested by a warning cry. The imperial carriage was almost upon him.

He had only time to stumble back, shift parcels anyhow, and take off his hat with his left hand. But fancy saluting an Emperor with the left hand! I have known men in India knocked down by choleric colonels for milder solecisms. No wonder the Kaiser was wrath and forgot his dignity. He leaned right out of his carriage and shouted something that sounded very like “Swine!” Then there was an exhibition of rage that must be rare even in the varied history of the Hohenzollerns. The Kaiser put out his imperial tongue at the unknown Englishman.

How childish! Yes, but he has always considered himself a spoiled child, with 'all a spoiled child’s privilege to do just what happened to enter his head. And just then he was murmuring an equivalent of “Gott strafe England” to himself nqar’y all the time. It was soon after his father’s death, when he had put his mother under arrest and set sentinels at every door of the palace to prevent her exporting her diaries and private papers, and it was an Englishman (who knows? perhaps that very left-handed Englishman) who had helped to smuggle them 'away. THE JOKE HE LIKES. Still, with his chameleon temper, he' has often offered an apparently warm welcome to Eng.ishmen before and since. I say “apparently,” because there was 'almost always an element of mischief about it. I remember an industrial deputation that he came to meet when he was cruising about somewhere near Hamburg. He said nothing about industry but a great deal about the sea, and everybody began to wonder what he was driving at. “A veryi nasty, chjopjpy seas,” ho, roared, in that colloquial, exotic English of his. There was an odd look in his eyes and the muscles twitched at the corners of his mouth. “Ah! gentlemen,” he went on, “confess, now, weren’t you all very sick indeed when you crossed North Sea? Didn’t yen feel very sorry that you had ventured upon our German Ocean, our great safeguard against invasion?” Then he threw back his shoulders and gave vent to peals upon peals of Homeric' laughter, that seemed as though they would never stop. I have been told since by several of hig familiar friends that anything to do with seasickness is an unfailing source of joy to him. However gloomy or perturbed he may be, the mere mention of “a bad crossing” suffices to bring him back to mirth. His laugh is unlike any other in the

j world —not so much a mad laugh as an uncanny one. He opens his mouth very wide and roar's, or rather bays, screwing up his nose 'and shutting his •eyes. It is not an infectious laugh, for you are too much astonished to want to join. At last there are three or four snaps or barks and he stops suddenly. The only sound I have heard 'much like it is the laughter of a forest when a storm is passing away. DOING ALL THE TALKING. i Most of his humour is ' of the simplest, silliest kind, such as would make quite suiall schoolboys feel ashamed. Occasionally, however, he devised practical jokes that must have required a dong period of incubation. For instance, he made quite a practice of inviting Mr. Winston Churchill to the German manoeuvres and then scarcely allowing him to open his mouth. ‘Tie received me very kindly,” Mr. Churchill told me ruefully on his return , from one of these expeditions,, “but his ideas of conversation are decidedly original. He insists on doing-' all the talking himself.”

This must have bee special treat

( meat deliberately prepared for a good i talker, as the Kaiser’s habit is to ply I most people with incessant questions. [ The idea that he is garrulous in prij vate requires refutation. It doubtless glares© from memories of his many pubj lie indiscretions. i | IMPERIAL PINCHES. I (When he stayed in the New Forest (some say for purposes of high espioni. age) he made himself quite popular 1 with the villagers by giving elaborate tea-fights to their children. He used to organise their games and give them shillings, but the small boys used tO' complain that he 'was too rough, and he did not seem to realise how much he could hurt with his pinches. MANY DISGUISES. His delight has been to surprise people, whether agreeably or not was of no consequence. I have seen him deliberately forget to tip humble people and then watch stealthily to see how they took the disappointment. The eventual reward would not be 'according to their fortitude but according to the whim of the moment. Mischief is the keynote of his more than eccentric character. For instance, when he went abroad special police were 'always told off to guard him against conspirators, and he used to lay the most elaborate plots to dodge his keepers 'and make them look foolish. His disguises were so ingenious that the astutest detective could not be expected to penetrate them - ---- - ■ n There is no inherent nobility in his carriage and features. He can make up like a very passable stage-monarch, but he can also make up like a very

live chimixey-sweqp. It might be thought that his famous moustache was always unmistakable, but he can twist it into the most unexpected shapes, an dwhen people do not see the bristling prongs they conclude this cannot be the man.

Oddly enough, though he is inordinately strict about morality at home, he has been very curious to “see life” in all its forms. I gather that there has been nothing wicked about his escapades, but his great ambition was to pose a s a fascinating young man and “take people in.” This has sometimes led to rather unpleasant moments, for he cannot stand chaff and cherishes motions of lese-majeste at the back of his head even at his most expansive hours. NO MONEY. Once upon a time, the story runs, he and an equerry went in disguise to a dancing den and ordered lavish refreshments in gutteral tones. Then they found (for royalty rarely carries money) that they had both come out without their purses. They were detained and pushed about, and the last seen of them was a dishevelled monarch and his companion running down a fouh street, hatless, coatless, their hair dishevelled, yelling desperately for help that was not to be found.