ect there was of better weather. The
sole answer was an unintelligible English word, a shrug of the shoulders,
and a puff of cigarette smoke blown with gusto.

Frederick put the letter in his breast pocket, and he felt his heart
beneath beat more warmly, less turbulently. He had to close his eyes to
prevent a hot gush of tears. Doctor Wilhelm found him in this soft mood,
and it occurred to him that perhaps after all Frederick had been
tragically affected by the bitter close of his professional career.

"I slept like a bear," he said. And it was evident from the healthy
colour of his face and his comfortable way of stretching and yawning that
his night's sleep had thoroughly refreshed him. "But the weather is
fiendish," he added, seating himself close beside Frederick.

"Congratulate you," said Frederick. "I didn't sleep a wink."

"Take some veronal. But whatever you do, come down now to breakfast with
me. The best thing for you is to keep moving. So I advise you, after
breakfast to come with me on my visit to the steerage. It will take your
mind off things and may interest you. There are interesting types there,
women, too. But before we go, we must make ourselves insect-proof. We'll
puff powder on our clothes in my room."

XVI

The gentlemen had breakfasted--baked potatoes and cutlets, ham and eggs,
broiled flounder and other fish, beside tea and coffee--and were entering
the steerage.

Here, to keep from falling, they had to hold fast to the iron posts
supporting the ceiling. After their eyes had grown accustomed to the
twilight always reigning in the steerage, they saw a swarm of human
beings rolling on the floor, groaning, whimpering, wailing, shrieking.
The weather did not permit of the opening of the port-holes, and the
exhalations of about twenty Russian-Jewish families, with bag and baggage
and babies, polluted the air to such an extent, that Frederick could
scarcely breathe. Mothers lying on their backs with open mouths and
closed eyes, more dead than alive, had infants at their breasts; and it
was fearful to see how the retching convulsed them.

"Come," said Doctor Wilhelm, observing something like a tendency to faint
in Frederick's face. "Come, let us show how superfluous we are."

But Doctor Wilhelm and the Red Cross nurse, who accompanied him, had a
chance, here and there, to do some good. He ordered grapes and a tonic
for those who were suffering most. These things were obtained from the