mpared with nasal American spoken by a
German tongue. The great ship was crowded with people of this type,
and the resources of Europe could hardly supply them with the
luxuries they wanted. We had a special train next day to Cuxhaven, and
an army of blue-coated white-gloved stewards to meet us on the
platform, and a band to play us on board. Our private rooms were hung
with pale blue silk and painted with white enamel and furnished with
satin-wood; the passages had marble floors; there were quantities of
flowers everywhere, and books, and the electric light. In fact, it was
the luxurious floating hotel a modern liner must be to entice such
people as those I saw in the luggage bureau to travel in it. The meals
were most elaborate and excellent; and I feel sure that any royal
family happening to travel incognito on the ship would have been
satisfied with them. But my neighbours at table were not. "We shall
not dine down here again," said one of them, speaking with the twang I
have described. "After to-night we shall have all our meals in the
Ritz Restaurant." I looked at her reflectively, and next day after
breakfast I stood on the bridge and looked at the other emigrants. The
women were singing an interminable droning mass, the men sat about on
sacks and played cards, the bare-footed children scuttled to and fro.

"One day some of these people will come back in a _Luxus_ cabin," said
a German acquaintance to me.

"And they will dine in the Ritz Restaurant, because our dinner is not
good enough for them," I prophesied.

Directly we got to Dover every feature of our arrival helped us to
feel at home. There was a batch of large good-natured looking
policemen, whose function I cannot explain, but it was agreeable to
see them again. There was no order or organisation of any kind to
protect and annoy you. The authorities had thoughtfully painted the
letters of the alphabet on the platform where the luggage was
deposited, and you were supposed to find your own trunks in front of
your own letter. I, full of German ideas still, waited a weary time
near my letter. "You'll never get them that way," said an English
friend. "You'd much better go to the end of the platform and pick them
out as you can." So I went, and found a huge pile of luggage pitched
anyhow, anywhere, and picked out my own, seized a porter, made him
shoulder things, and followed him at risk to life and limb. All the
luggage leaving Dover was being tumbled abou