werful rival had found a way of checkmating
him. His customers, to whom he sent large consignments not only of
coal but also of copper and iron bars, wrote to him that the new
Bondavara Coal Company had offered the same class of goods at fifty
per cent. less, and that therefore, unless he was prepared to make a
similar reduction, they could not deal with him. Fifty per cent.
higher wages and fifty per cent. less profit means working for
nothing. Raune had Ivan's business in the hollow of his hand; he could
ruin it, and he meant to do so. Ivan saw this quite clearly, but he
did not lose heart. He wrote to all his former customers that it was
not possible to give either the coal or the iron a farthing cheaper,
not if it hung round his neck as a dead weight. The consequence was
his coal and his iron accumulated in his warehouses; scarcely a wagon
with his name was to be seen in the streets of Bondathal. He had to
work the mine and the foundry for himself alone.

For the men who had remained true to him there was, indeed, a bad
outlook. Their former comrades jeered at them in the open street.
"Where is the profit?" was a popular cry. Ivan tried to quiet the
disappointed men; he asked them to wait patiently. By the end of the
year, he prophesied, they would be on the right side. To give things
for nothing was not trade, and if the company chose to do it he wasn't
going to follow such a suicidal example.

The great buildings of the new colony being now completed, the
directors of the company announced that they would hold high festival
in honor of the opening of the undertaking. The principals, directors,
managers, shareholders were to come from Vienna and be entertained at
a banquet. The largest room in the factory was fitted up as a
dining-room, the tables being laid for workmen as well as for the
distinguished company of strangers. It was widely circulated that the
prince was coming. The company had chosen him as their president. Both
the princes were patrons of commercial and industrial undertakings,
but Prince Theobald possessed an extraordinary financial talent; any
speculation he engaged in was a sound and sure one, so it was said, as
also that he had taken a million shares in the new company. It was so
far true that Kaulmann had offered him this million, which was to
increase the value of the Bondavara property, but it is needless to
remark that the million of shares had no tangible existence. Previous
to the inaugu