This etext was produced by Gardner BuchananTHE HOHENZOLLERNS IN AMERICAWITH THE BOLSHEVIKS IN BERLIN AND OTHER IMPOSSIBILITIESBy Stephen Leacock   CONTENTSI   THE HOHENZOLLERNS IN AMERICAII  WITH THE BOLSHEVIKS IN BERLINIII AFTERNOON TEA WITH THE SULTANIV  ECHOES OF THE WAR   1 The Boy Who Came Back   2 The War Sacrifices of Mr Spugg   3 If Germany Had Won   4 War and Peace at the Galaxy Club   5 The War News as I Remember It   6 Some Just Complaints About the War   7 Some Startling Side Effects of the WarV   OTHER IMPOSSIBILITIES   1 The Art of Conversation   2 Heroes and Heroines   3 The Discovery of America   4 Politics from Within   5 The Lost Illusions of Mr Sims   6 Fetching the DoctorIThe Hohenzollerns in AmericaPREFACEThe proper punishment for the Hohenzollerns and theHapsburgs and the Mecklenburgs and the Muckendorfsand all such puppets and princelings is that they shouldbe made to work and not made to work in the glitteringand glorious sense as generals and chiefs of staff andlegislators and landbarons but in the plain and humblepart of laborers looking for a job that they shouldcarry a hod and wield a trowel and swing a pick and atthe days end be glad of a humble supper and a nightsrest that they should work in short as millions ofpoor emigrants out of Germany have worked for generationspast that there should be about them none of the prestigeof fallen grandeur that if it were possible by sometrick of magic or change of circumstance the worldshould know them only as laboring men with the dignityand divinity of kingship departed out of them that assuch they should stand or fall live or starve as bestthey might by the work of their own hands and brainsCould this be done the world would have a better ideaof the thin stuff out of which autocratic kingship isfashionedIt is a favourite fancy of mine to imagine thistransformation actually brought about and to picturethe Hohenzollerns as an immigrant family departing forAmerica their trunks and boxes on their backs theirbundles in their handsThe fragments of a diary that here follow present thedetails of such a picture It is written or imagined tobe written by the former Princess Frederica ofHohenzollern I do not find her name in the Almanach deGotha Perhaps she does not exist But from the textbelow she is to be presumed to be one of the innumerablenieces of the German EmperorCHAPTER IOn Board the SS America WednesdayAt last our embarkation is over and we are at sea I amso glad it is done It was dreadful to see poor UncleWilliam and Uncle Henry and Cousin Willie and CousinFerdinand of Bulgaria coming up the gangplank into thesteerage with their boxes on their backs They lookedso different in their rough clothes Uncle William iswearing an old blue shirt and a red handkerchief roundhis neck and his hair looks thin and unkempt and hismoustache draggled and his face unshaved His eyes seemwatery and wandering and his little withered arm sopathetic Is it possible he was always really like thatAt the top of the gangplank he stood still a minutehis box still on his back and said This then is thepathway to Saint Helena I heard an officer down on thedock call up Now then my man move on there smartlyplease And I saw some young roughs pointing at Uncleand laughing and saying Look at the old guy with thered handkerchief Is he batty ehThe forward deck of the steamer the steerage deck whichis the only place that we are allowed to go was crowdedwith people all poor and with their trunks and boxesand paper bags all round them When Uncle set down hisbox there was soon quite a little crowd around him sothat I could hardly see him But I could hear themlaughing and I knew that they were taking a rise outof him as they call itjust as they did in theemigration sheds on shore I heard Uncle say Let winebe brought I am faint and some one else said Yeslet it and there arose a big shout of laughterCousin Willie had sneaked away with his box down to thelower deck I thought it mean of him not to stay withhis father I never noticed till now what a sneaking faceCousin Willie has In his uniform as Crown Prince itwas different But in his shabby clothes among theserough people he seems so changed He walks with a meanstoop and his eyes look about in such a furtive waynever still I saw one of the ships officers watchinghim very closely and sternlyCousin Karl of Austria and Cousin Ruprecht of Bavariaare not here We thought they were to come on this shipbut they are not here We could hardly believe that theship would sail without themI managed to get Uncle William out of the crowd and downbelow He was glad to get off the deck He seemed afraidto look at the sea and when we got into the big cabinhe clutched at the cover of the port and said Shut ithelp me shut it shut out the sound of the sea and thenfor a little time he sat on one of the bunks all hunchedup and muttering Dont let me hear the sea dont letme hear it His eyes looked so queer and fixed that Ithought he must be in a sort of fit or seizure ButUncle Henry and Cousin Willie and Cousin Ferdinand cameinto the cabin and he got better againCousin Ferdinand has got hold of a queer long overcoatwith the sleeves turned up and a little round hat andlooks exactly like a Jew He says he traded one of ourempty boxes for the coat and hat I never noticed beforehow queer and thick Cousin Ferdinands speech is andhow much he gesticulates with his hands when he talksI am sure that when I