of the new company and began to
do business on modern lines.

Almost from the very beginning the new company was a great
success: its situation was central; the company inspired its
members with enterprise and spirit; it was industrious,
energetic, and splendidly organized; and at last it began to
cut into the trade of the old-established "monster."
Competition might have gone on in the ordinary way had not
the new company made a departure in business methods that
gradually roused special uneasiness among the members of the
"monster" firm. Hitherto the latter had its delivery vans
travel all over the town, and so well was this part of its
system carried on that the firm acquired all but a monopoly
of carrying and delivery. The new company, however, now
began to do a little in the same line, whereupon the
"monster" took to building a superior type of van much more
powerful and imposing, if also much more expensive, than the
one previously in use. The new company naturally followed
suit, and in a surprisingly short time had built, or had
under construction, several vans of an exactly similar kind.
The "monster" saw the new departure of their rivals at first
with curiosity, then with contempt, then with anxiety, and
finally with suspicion and alarm. At the time of writing the
alarm appears to have abated, but a good deal of the
suspicion remains. The town is the world, the "monster"
Great Britain, and the rival company the modern German
Empire.

It would require the Emperor himself properly to tell the story of his
creation of the modern German navy, and if he has a right to call any
part of his people's property his own, he is justified in speaking, as
he invariably does, of "my navy." As Prince William, his interest in
the subject may have been originally due, as has been seen, to his
partly English parentage, his frequent visits to England, and the fact
that his physical disability threatened to prevent him taking an
active part in the more strenuous duties of the soldier. It is very
probable that it was in the region that cradled the British navy the
idea of a great German navy was conceived by him. We have seen that
the Emperor, as Prince William, showed his enthusiasm in the matter by
delivering lectures on it in military circles, though it was not his
lot, but that of his brother Hen