This incident shows that the Tzar had something akin to second sight
when he gave orders that the length of the manoeuvres would be
optional. Thanks to this, the Kaiser was free to take home the sooner
his pretty jacket (no, his tunic, I mean) from Narva.

What an interesting broadsheet might be made on the subject of "William
II a prisoner"!

In the long winter evenings to come, how many a Russian peasant--gifted
with imagination as they are--in telling again the tale of the Viborg
Regiment's attack, will see in it an omen of the destiny of the German
Emperor! And they will add, with bated breath, that the
_Hohenzollern_, on leaving the shores of Russia narrowly missed being
cut in two by another vessel. And one more sign of evil omen--a
fearful tempest shook the Imperial yacht in Russian waters.

Let us, whose Emperor was a prisoner of the Germans in 1871, pray that
some day a German Emperor may be taken prisoner by the Russian
army--not like at Narva, but in all seriousness.

I said in my last letter that it might well be that William's journey
to Russia might result in stiffening the resolution of the Emperor
Alexander. And so it has proved, for scarcely had his Imperial guest
returned to Berlin, than a ukase raised the Russian Customs tariff and
imposed a new duty of 20 per cent. on German imports. A fine result
this, of that which the German Press, before William's departure,
described as the Russo-German Economic Entente, at a moment when, even
for the Berlin newspapers, the prospects of a political _entente_ were
somewhat dubious.