This morning we went to the Royal Porcelain Factory, which proved of great interest. We had a good guide who explained the manufacture of china to us. I envied them their fine kilns which are built up of brick and look as new and clean as if they had never been used.

They have a tester for the different degrees of heat, which has been invented by some professor. It is a combination of chemicals made into a cone, the point of which bends over at the desired degree of heat. He says that the “Tpm Zeitung,” Dreyse Str. in Berlin, N. W., are the agents for it, and I believe we ought to give them a trial. If you wish to do so, I can write to Herman III, who will attend to it.

I went to the Potsdam Bahnhof to get my ticket for Wernigerode. We travel third class now, as it is cooler in summer and very clean and satisfactory, especially on through or express trains. All the better class people such as merchants, professors, etc. travel that way now, and it has given us good satisfaction. For this reason I do not intend to buy a trip ticket, but I will buy my ticket from city to city.

Dinner at the Rheingold where you can get a big dish of vegetables for 35 Pfennigs (9 cents) and a dish of good meat for 86 Pfennigs (21 cents). Total 30 cents for a good meal. These are the standard prices. They have a beer restaurant, and you have to buy a glass of Munchener 30 Pfennigs (7.5 cents), while at the Wine Restaurant a bottle of Mosel or Rhein Wine costs from 47.5 cts. etc. up.

Cousin Hermann II, who is now in Greifawald and who is the son of Dr. Heinrich Jacoby, called at the hotel with flowers and candy for the ladies. He is another old bachelor of about 52 years and very entertaining.

I went downstairs to see the porter about something and saw him out in the street gesticulating. He told me that the Kaiser [Wilhelm II] had just passed, so I walked up to the corner and, seeing a cabby, asked him whether he could drive past the emperor, so that I could get a good look at him, and he said, “Of course.”

I jumped into his cab, and it was worth the price to see the way he dodged other vehicles and gradually forged to the front. At a cross street, we were stopped to let a number of vehicles and pedestrians pass, but we reached the “Wachs” near the palace before S.M. (Seine Majestat, His Majesty) as the Berliner calls the emperor “for short.”

I had a good look at him—he was on horseback with a general on each side and accompanied by his youngest son, who was in citizen clothes. Numerous men on bicycles rode around him, and the cabbie told me they were detectives!

We rode all around him, and I poked my head out of the window, and we looked at each other. We were both so astonished over the sudden meeting that we forgot to salute.

Well, S.M. is all right, and he has the proper respect for U.S. and is good to us strangers and lets us have free access to his palaces and galleries, provided we pay admission and tips.

Mama and Emily and I went to meeting and took supper with Hermann II and III at the “Rheingold.” Home in time to pack up, which is always a pleasant hour’s work.