This morning we had a great disappointment. It had been
pretty well arranged on board the ship that Uncle would
take over the presidency of Harvard University. Uncle
Henry and Cousin Ferdinand and Cousin Willie had all
consented to it, and we looked upon it as done. Now it
seems there is a mistake. First of all Harvard University
is not in New York, as we had always thought in Germany
that it was. I remember that when Uncle Henry came home
from his great tour in America, in which he studied
American institutions so profoundly, and made his report
he said that Harvard University was in New York. Uncle
had this information filed away in our Secret Service
Department.

But it seems that it is somewhere else. The University
here is called Columbia, so Uncle decided that he would
be president of that. In the old days all the great men
of learning used to assure Uncle that if fate had not
made him an emperor he would have been better fitted than
any living man to be the head of a great university.
Uncle admitted this himself, though he resented being
compared only to the living ones.

So it was a great disappointment to-day when they refused
to give him the presidency. I went with him to the college,
but I cannot quite understand what happened or why they
won't give it to him. We walked all the way up and I
carried a handbag filled with Uncle's degrees and diplomas
from Oxford and all over the world. All the way up Uncle