ines of a first-deck stateroom, piled round with
luggage and its double-decker berths freshly made up, Mrs. Binswanger
applied an anxious eye to the port-hole, straining tiptoe for a wider
glimpse of deck.

"I tell you this much, papa, in another five minutes when that child
don't come, right away off the boat I get and go home where I belong."

In the act of browsing among the lower contents of his wicker hand-bag
Mr. Binswanger raised a perspiring face.

"Na, na, mamma, thirty minutes' time yet she's got to get here.
Everybody don't got to come on four hours too soon like us."

"Ja, you should worry about anything, so long as you got right in front
of you your newspapers and your tobacco. Right away for his tobacco he
has to dig when he sees so worried I am I can't see. Why don't our Ray
come back now if she can't find 'em and say she can't find 'em?"

"I tell you, Carrie, if you let me go myself I can find 'em and--"

"Right here you stay with me, Simon Binswanger! We don't get separated
no more as we can help. I ain't--Ach, look such a crowd, and no Miriam.
I--"

"Na, na, Carrie!"

"So easy-going he is! My daughter should keep me worried like this!
To lunch the day what she sails to Europe she has to go! Always she
complains that salesmen ain't good enough for her yet, and on the day
she sails she has to go to lunch with one. Why, I ask you, Simon, why
don't that Ray come back?"

Mr. Binswanger packed his pipe tight and adjusted a small, close-fitting
black cap. "To travel with women, I tell you, it ain't no pleasure."

"Ach, du Himmel! Right away off that cap comes, Simon! With my own hands
right away out of sight I hide it. Just once I want Miriam should see
you in that skull-hat! Right away off you take it, Simon!"

"Ach, Carrie, on my own head I--"

"I tell you already ten times I wish I was back in my flat. I guess you
think it's a good feeling I got to lock up my flat for Himmel knows
who to break in, and my son Isadore 'way out in Ohio and not even here
to--to say to his mother good-by. Already with such a smell on this boat
and my feelings I got a homesickness I don't wish on my worst enemy. My
boy should be left like this in America all alone!"

"Ach, Carrie, for why--"

Of a sudden Mrs. Binswanger's face fell into soft creases, her eyes
closed, and cold tears oozed through, zigzagging downward. "My boy out
West with--"

"Na, na, Carrie! Don't you worry our Izzy don't take care of hisself