tell him what I think of him. If the British fleet failed to-day
do you know how long it would take the Germans to get over to Canada?
About ten days! And about ten thousand German marines with a couple of
naval guns would make Canada throw up her hands as fast as a footpad
would an old lady in a dark lane. I would say that ten high explosive
shells in Quebec and about twenty in Montreal would do the trick. That
followed by the despatch of two or three regiments to Ottawa would
settle the matter. The whole thing would be too ridiculous for words.
The United States would mind their own business because the Monroe
doctrine would avail but little without troops to back it up."

"Then what?" asked the Colonel, as the Doc. stopped for breath.

"Canada is the ideal country for a powerful German colony. I honestly
believe they would prefer Canada with all its latent resources, its
water power, great wheat fields, minerals and forest wealth, to any
spot on earth. With their systematic methods, their thousands of
trained scientists in all branches of industry, their tremendous
capacity for work and resourcefulness, they would take a hold of
Canada and develop it in a way that would startle the world. Germany
has millions of surplus population that she would transfer to Canada
for development purposes. She would have 100 million people to the
south of her for a market and in ten years she would control the
markets of the whole world. That is the German dream and there is only
one thing that stands in the way of its accomplishment, only one
thing."

"The British fleet?" asked the Cap.

"The British fleet!" repeated the Doc.

"I think you look on the whole thing too seriously," objected the
Colonel. "After all we are not reduced to extremities or anything like
it."

"No and that is the idea of every other conservative man in the
British Empire," said the Doc. "They all hope that something will turn
up before long, and fail to consider that while they hope the German
works. Just take a common enough example of how the devils do work in
comparison to ourselves. You remember those trenches that we lost in
the salient for several days to the Germans. Well our fellows were
simply thunderstruck when we took them back. They were remodelled,
strengthened and put into such perfect shape that our chaps said they
had never seen a real trench before. The beggars must have worked
twenty-four hours a day to do it. Catch our fellows doing