ne officers, who had accompanied the vessel on her
voyage, had dropped their report in the official tug which had met the
vessel on her entrance into the harbor, and as the old custom-house
annoyances had long since been abolished, most of the passengers were
prepared for a speedy landing.

One of these passengers--a man about thirty-five--stood looking out
over the stern of the vessel instead of gazing, as were most of his
companions, towards the city which they were approaching. He looked out
over the harbor, under the great bridge gently spanning the distance
between the western end of Long Island and the New Jersey shore--its
central pier resting where once lay the old Battery--and so he gazed
over the river, and over the houses stretching far to the west, as if
his eyes could catch some signs of the country far beyond. This
was Roland Clewe, the hero of our story, who had been studying and
experimenting for the past year in the scientific schools and workshops
of Germany. It was towards his own laboratory and his own workshops,
which lay out in the country far beyond the wide line of buildings and
settlements which line the western bank of the Hudson, that his heart
went out and his eyes vainly strove to follow.

Skilfully steered, the Thalia moved slowly between high stone piers of
massive construction; but the Euterpe, or upper part of the vessel, did
not pass between the piers, but over them both, and when the pier-heads
projected beyond her stern the motion of the lower vessel ceased; then
the great piston, which supported the socket in which the ball of the
Euterpe moved, slowly began to descend into the central portion of the
Thalia, and as the tide was low, it was not long before each side of
the upper hull rested firmly and securely upon the stone piers. Then the
socket on the lower vessel descended rapidly until it was entirely clear
of the ball, and the Thalia backed out from between the piers to take
its place in a dock where it would be fitted for the voyage of the next
day but one, when it would move under the Melpomene, resting on its
piers a short distance below, and, adjusting its socket to her ball,
would lift her free from the piers and carry her across the ocean.

The pier of the Euterpe was not far from the great Long Island and New
Jersey Bridge, and Roland Clewe, when he reached the broad sidewalk
which ran along the river-front, walked rapidly towards the bridge. When
he came to it he stepp