held themselves stiffly aloof in
this uncongenial atmosphere.

At night there was a gala banquet in the dining room at the end of which
the French flag and that of the Empire formed a flaunting, conspicuous
drapery. All the German passengers were in dress suits, and their wives
were wearing low-necked gowns. The uniforms of the attendants were as
resplendent as on a day of a grand review.

During dessert the tapping of a knife upon a glass reduced the table
to sudden silence. The Commandant was going to speak. And this brave
mariner who united to his nautical functions the obligation of making
harangues at banquets and opening the dance with the lady of most
importance, began unrolling a string of words like the noise of clappers
between long intervals of silence. Desnoyers knew a little German as
a souvenir of a visit to some relatives in Berlin, and so was able
to catch a few words. The Commandant was repeating every few minutes
"peace" and "friends." A table neighbor, a commercial commissioner,
offered his services as interpreter to Julio, with that obsequiousness
which lives on advertisement.

"The Commandant asks God to maintain peace between Germany and France
and hopes that the two peoples will become increasingly friendly."

Another orator arose at the same table. He was the most influential of
the German passengers, a rich manufacturer from Dusseldorf who had just
been visiting his agents in America. He was never mentioned by name. He
bore the title of Commercial Counsellor, and among his countrymen was
always Herr Comerzienrath and his wife was entitled Frau Rath. The
Counsellor's Lady, much younger than her important husband, had from
the first attracted the attention of Desnoyers. She, too, had made an
exception in favor of this young Argentinian, abdicating her title from
their first conversation. "Call me Bertha," she said as condescendingly
as a duchess of Versailles might have spoken to a handsome abbot seated
at her feet. Her husband, also protested upon hearing Desnoyers call him
"Counsellor," like his compatriots.

"My friends," he said, "call me 'Captain.' I command a company of the
Landsturm." And the air with which the manufacturer accompanied these
words, revealed the melancholy of an unappreciated man scorning the
honors he has in order to think only of those he does not possess.

While he was delivering his discourse, Julio was examining his small
head and thick neck which gave him a certa