the sinking of the _Roland_! All about
the sinking of the _Roland_!" In large, catching headlines he read: "The
_Roland_ leaves Bremen. Slight accident compels her to return. _Roland_
starts on trip again. Constant storms. Dead man on board. Nine hundred
drowned. Heroic conduct of a servant-girl. Doctor Frederick von Kammacher
performs miracles of bravery." Frederick started, reflected, but could
not recall anything of the sort. "Child dies in life-boat. Captain Butor
of the _Hamburg_ sights castaways. Report of survivors. Arthur Stoss,
champion armless marksman, helped into life-boat by faithful valet," and
so on. It was an invaluable supply of fresh, sensational, gratuitously
obtained material, to be served for a week in generous portions to
readers in both the old and the new worlds.

The cab rolled up Broadway, that main thoroughfare of New York stretching
along for miles, with two apparently unbroken chains of street-cars
moving by each other. At that time the cars were propelled by an endless
cable travelling in a conduit under the roadway. The traffic all along
Broadway was enormous, and the contrast was the more surprising when
the cab, after traversing another lively street, turned into a
deserted-looking side street, where almost country-like quiet prevailed.

The cab came to a halt, and Willy Snyders helped Ingigerd out. The
travellers found themselves in front of a low one-family house with a
flight of outside steps, differing in no wise from the other houses on
the block, which were all built on the same plan, of exactly the same
height, of exactly the same width, and with absolute similarity of
detail. Frederick had observed such architectural monotony only in
workingmen's houses in Germany, while here it was the mark of a fairly
aristocratic section.

Twilight had already fallen when Frederick and Ingigerd at length found
privacy in their rooms. The rooms, plainly furnished and scrupulously
clean, were lighted by electricity and heated from a furnace in the
cellar; and the floors were not laid with wood, but paved with red
bricks. Petronilla, the old Italian housekeeper, took Ingigerd in charge,
looking after the smallest of her wants with touching motherliness. The
two said what was necessary to say in a mixture of Italian and English.
After showing Ingigerd to her room and seeing that she was provided with
everything, Petronilla stepped out into the hall to call a maid, who was
working in another part