From an inferior man, I should expect officious and quite gratuitous
commiseration over the fate of the late Empire. You, however, will
readily perceive it to be possible that I should rather be
congratulated. You would not exchange your dignified leisure, your
careless toils, for the best of sovereignties. Why, then, should I, who
have made you my exemplar, feel a pang at parting with a sceptre which
for years has only tired my hand?

I picture myself seated with my family on the heights at Weehawken,
smoking a good cigarette, and musing on the affairs of nations as I
watch the flow of that superb river (as much finer than the Rhine, my
friend, as wine is finer than lagerbier!) which I have often, in days
gone by, admired and extolled by the hour.

I expect they will pleasantly call me Duke Hudson, and my son the Prince
of Staten Island. No matter. I can always face the Inevitable.

And that reminds me of the late war, in which the Inevitable that I was
always being called upon to face, was the Inevitable Prussian. But I
have faced much more terrible things. In your very city of Hoboken, I
have stood face to face with a German creditor! Will any one henceforth
doubt my fortitude?

I have one rather comforting reflection, apropos to that _rencontre._ I
have taken care to arm myself against future assaults of that nature. I
am Gold-Plated.

If your highly-gifted corps of artists should wish to depict me in a
connection which would satisfy my sense of honor, let them make a sketch