I’ve only once been back to Germany. Indeed, I don’t include it even among the garrulous reminiscences that have made me the curse of half the clubs in London—those that’ll have me. Only once did I tell the tale, and that was privately some years ago, to young Hawkins, the lawyer—I must have been well foxed, or he was damned persuasive—and he has used it for the stuff of one of his romances, which sells very well, I’m told.

He made it into a heroic tale, of course, but whether he believed it or not when I told it, I’ve no idea; probably not. It’s a good deal stranger than fiction, and yet not so strange, because such resemblances as mine and Carl Gustaf’s do happen. Why, I can think of another case, connected with this very story, and I saw it when the Duchess Irma came to London in the old Queen’s diamond year—they were related, as I’ve said. It’s the only time I’ve seen Irma since—I kept well in the background, of course, but I had a good look at her, and even at seventy she was a damned handsome piece, and set me itching back over the years. She was a widow then, Carl Gustaf having died of a chill on the lungs back in the ’60’s, but she had her son with her; he was a chap in his forties, I should say, and the point is that he was the living spit of Rudi von Starnberg—well, that can only have been coincidence, of course. It gave me quite a turn, though, and for a moment I was glancing nervously round for a quick retreat.

Rudi I last heard of with the Germans when they marched on Paris; there was a rumour of his death, so he’s probably been stoking Lucifer’s fires these thirty years and good luck to him. Unlike Mr Rassendyll I did not exercise myself daily in arms in expectation of trying another round with him: one was enough to convince me that with fellows like young Rudi the best weapon you can have is a long pair of legs and a good start.

Bismarck—well, all the world knows about him. I suppose he was one of the greatest statesmen of the age, a shaper of destiny and all the rest of it. He got to his feet for me, though, when I looked down my nose at him—I like to think back on that. And it is queer to consider that but for me, the course of history in Europe might have been very different—though who’s to know? Bismarck, Lola, Rudi, Irma, and I—the threads come together, and then run very wide, and are all gathered together again, and go into the dark in the end. You see, I can be philosophical—I’m still here.43