ees, and, in the distance, the passing trains can be seen. Nothing
else. The ocean, too, is shut out.

All were helped off, the baggage put on the sidewalk, and then taken up
again and carried into the building, where the passengers were ordered
to go. On the left side of the little corridor was a small office where
a man sat before a desk covered with papers. These he pushed aside when
we entered, and called us in one by one, except, of course children. As
usual, many questions were asked, the new ones being about our tickets.
Then each person, children included, had to pay three marcs--one for the
wagon that brought us over and two for food and lodgings, till our
various ships should take us away.

Mamma, having five to pay for, owed fifteen marcs. The little sum we
started with was to last us to the end of the journey, and would have
done so if there hadn't been those unexpected bills to pay at Keebart,
Eidtkunen, Berlin, and now at the office. Seeing how often services were
forced upon us unasked and payment afterwards demanded, mother had begun
to fear that we should need more money, and had sold some things to a
woman for less than a third of their value. In spite of that, so heavy
was the drain on the spare purse where it had not been expected, she
found to her dismay that she had only twelve marcs left to meet the new
bill.

The man in the office wouldn't believe it, and we were given over in
charge of a woman in a dark gray dress and long white apron, with a red
cross on her right arm. She led us away and thoroughly searched us all,
as well as our baggage. That was nice treatment, like what we had been
receiving since our first uninterrupted entrance into Germany. Always a
call for money, always suspicion of our presence and always rough orders
and scowls of disapproval, even at the quickest obedience. And now this
outrageous indignity! We had to bear it all because we were going to
America from a land cursed by the dreadful epidemic. Others besides
ourselves shared these trials, the last one included, if that were any
comfort, which it was not.

When the woman reported the result of the search as being fruitless, the
man was satisfied, and we were ordered with the rest through many more
examinations and ceremonies before we should be established under the
quarantine, for that it was.

While waiting for our turn to be examined by the doctor I looked about,
thinking it worth while to get acquainted with a p