ny of the officers of the _Roland_ were present, the demands upon
them in such bad weather being too severe to permit them to leave their
posts. The tables had been provided with a wooden apparatus dividing them
into small compartments, which prevented the plates, glasses and bottles
from slipping any distance. Nevertheless, there was much breaking of
crockery, and it required all the skill of the stewards to serve the
dishes, especially the soup. From the kitchen and the china room every
now and then came the sound of a tremendous crash. There were scarcely
twelve people at table, among them Hahlstroem and Doctor Wilhelm. After
a time the skat players, as usual, came bursting in, talking noisily and
red of face. Their winnings were immediately transmuted into Pommery.
Notwithstanding the fearful weather, the band was playing. There seemed
to be something frivolous, almost challenging, in the playing of music
when, at short intervals, the _Roland_ would come to a quivering
standstill, as if it had run upon a reef. Once the illusion was so strong
that a panic arose in the steerage. Mr. Pfundner, the head-steward,
brought this explanation of the horrified shrieks that had penetrated the
dining-room above the noise of the raging waters, the rattling of the
plates and the blare of the band.

At dessert Hahlstroem left his place at the other end of the room and,
balancing himself with difficulty, came over to Frederick and Doctor
Wilhelm, and asked permission to seat himself beside them. He seemed
to have been drinking whisky, as he had dropped his natural shell of
reticence. He spoke of hydrotherapy and gymnastic exercises, and called
himself a quack. It was the gymnastics, he said, that had given his
daughter the idea of taking up dancing. As if to challenge the others, he
elaborated bold philosophic theories, dealing out one wild statement
after the other, each of which would have been a trump sufficient to end
the game for ten German Philistines. To believe his own word, he was a
terroristic Anarchist, a white-slave trafficker, an adventurer always. At
any rate, he espoused the cause of all who were Anarchists, procurers, or
adventurers. He argued in all superiority, upon egotistic grounds,
calling these the intellectuals, and all others, creatures without
brains; in which his philosophy showed some similarity to Frederick von
Kammacher's new philosophy, now that Frederick had entered upon a new
phase of his life.

"Ame