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Tranby Croft provided one, his friendship for Baron Hirsch provided another; for the Baron, though he may have been a charming man-certainly his wife was a charming woman and a dear friend of mine—was an unscrupulous financier who had accumulated a vast fortune by curious and unclean methods of which the full story cannot be told, and yet for all his faults, he was not an ignoble man, but in some phases of his complex nature an idealist and philanthropist.

Berlin sneered at Baron Hirsch, Vienna was actually shocked, for in the Dual Empire a man is judged by his quarterings, and even if he should have made a huge fortune honestly and lacks quarterings he is less than the penniless, vicious, and brainless person of high descent.

King Edward smiled at the rage and spite of Vienna and Berlin. He remarked to one of his intimates that he could not allow either capital to choose his friends for him, and in order that there might be no mistake about his intentions he accepted an invitation from Baron Hirsch to shoot with him on his great estates at Eichorn. I don't know whether Baron Hirsch asked any Austrians or Germans, certainly none accepted the invitation, and King Edward found, much to his amusement, that all the other guests were Englishmen. He merely laughed, enjoyed his visit, and then, after it was over, visited the Baron in Paris, to the intense annoyance of the Jockey Club there. Perhaps it was not altogether wise to defy the conventions, but of course English Society has never been quite as exclusive as that of Berlin or Vienna.