excitement or perhaps hope, making them talk fast, and laugh as the
immense buildings of New York loomed picturesquely out of the silver
mist.

"Othello's occupation's gone," he found himself muttering as he leaned
on the rail, a lonely figure among those who had picked up friendships
on the voyage. He realized that he had been almost happy while he was
writing his story. Now that it was finished and had to be put aside, he
had nothing to look forward to. He was indeed _sans bourne_.

What the other steerage passengers did on landing, he did also. Vaguely
it appealed to his sense of humor (which had slept of late) that he,
Sir John Denin, should have his tongue looked at and questions put to
him concerning his means, character, and purpose in coming from Europe
to the United States. He went through the ordeal with good nature, and
passed doctors and inspectors without difficulty. When he was free, he
joined a couple of elderly Belgians to whom he had talked on shipboard,
and with them set forth in search of a cheap lodging-house, where he
might stay until he made up his mind what work he was fit to try for,
and do. He was a poor man now, and could not afford to live in idleness
for more than a few days. He realized this, also that a "job" of any
kind was hard to get, and doubly hard for him since he was not trained
for clerical work or strong enough at the moment to undertake manual
labor. Still, he could not resist the intense desire he had to shut
himself up and read the book which, when he thought of it, seemed to
have written itself. He had always gone on and on, never stopping to
glance back or correct; and he had a queer feeling that the story would
be a revelation to him, that help and comfort and strength would come
to him from its pages.

The Belgians remained in the lodging-house only long enough to unpack a
few things. They then went out together to see New York, and visit an
agency which had been recommended to them. But Denin shut himself up as
he had longed impatiently to do, in the tiny back room he had engaged,
on the top floor of a dreary house. There he took from the cheap bag
bought in Rotterdam--his one piece of luggage--the oddly assorted pages
of manuscript which made up a thick packet. With the moment that he
began to read, the stained walls and the dirty window with a
fire-escape outside vanished as if some genie had rubbed a lamp.

The story was of a soldier and his love for a girl who did no