e _Prince Bismarck_, a twin-screw steamer, one of the first models of
its kind, had just made its record-breaking trip, in which it had crossed
the Atlantic Ocean in six days, eleven hours, and twenty-four minutes.
About two thousand people were now making the trip from New York to
Europe. Two thousand people! That means twice as many as can fill a
Berlin theatre from the orchestra to the top gallery.

The _Roland_ and the _Bismarck_ exchanged lively flag signals. Yet
the whole grandiose vision, from the moment of its appearance to its
disappearance, lasted only three minutes. In that time the seething ocean
was flooded with light. It was not until nothing remained of the
_Bismarck_ but a dancing mist of light that its band came on deck and
played. On the _Roland_ they caught two or three trembling, fading
measures of the national hymn, _Heil dir im Siegerkranz_. Within a few
moments the _Roland_ was again alone on the ocean, in the night, the
tempest, and the snowstorm.

With twice as much fire, the band now played a quadrille by Karl,
_Festklaenge_, and a galop by Kiesler, _Jahrmarktskandal_; and with twice
as much appetite and twice as much liveliness the passengers seated
themselves at dinner again. "Fairylike!" they cried. "Glorious!"
"Tremendous!" "Colossal!"--this last a favourite expression of the
Germans.

Even Frederick had a sense of pride and tranquillisation. He felt a vital
breath of that atmosphere which is no less necessary to the mind of the
modern man than air is to his lungs.

"No matter how much we resist the thought," he said to Wilhelm, "and no
matter how much I railed yesterday evening against modern culture, a
sight like that must impress a man. It must go to the very marrow of his
bones. It is simply absurd that such a marvellous product of secret
natural forces, joined together by man's brains and hands, such a
creation over creation, such a miracle has become even possible." They
touched glasses. The sound of clinking glasses could be heard all over
the room. "And what courage, what boldness has been built into that great
living organism, what a degree of fearlessness in opposing those natural
forces which man has been standing in awe of for thousands of years! What
an audacious world of genius, from its keel to the top of its mast, from
its bowsprit to its screw!"

"And all this," responded Wilhelm, "has been attained in scarcely a
hundred years. So it signifies only the beginning of a d