nglishmen
admiring it, till he remembered that aesthetics were not the strong point
of our race. His wife sat hand in hand with Miss Triscoe, and from time
to time made him count the pieces of small baggage in the keeping of
their steward; while General Triscoe held aloof in a sarcastic calm.

The steamer groped into her dock; the gangways were lifted to her side;
the passengers fumbled and stumbled down their incline, and at the bottom
the Marches found themselves respectively in the arms of their son and
daughter. They all began talking at once, and ignoring and trying to
remember the Triscoes to whom the young Marches were presented. Bella did
her best to be polite to Agatha, and Tom offered to get an inspector for
the general at the same time as for his father. Then March, remorsefully
remembered the Eltwins, and looked about for them, so that his son might
get them an inspector too. He found the major already in the hands of an
inspector, who was passing all his pieces after carelessly looking into
one: the official who received the declarations on board had noted a
Grand Army button like his own in the major's lapel, and had marked his
fellow-veteran's paper with the mystic sign which procures for the bearer
the honor of being promptly treated as a smuggler, while the less favored
have to wait longer for this indignity at the hands of their government.
When March's own inspector came he was as civil and lenient as our
hateful law allows; when he had finished March tried to put a bank-note
in his hand, and was brought to a just shame by his refusal of it. The
bed-room steward keeping guard over the baggage helped put-it together
after the search, and protested that March had feed him so handsomely
that he would stay there with it as long as they wished. This partly
restored March's self-respect, and he could share in General Triscoe's
indignation with the Treasury ruling which obliged him to pay duty on his
own purchases in excess of the hundred-dollar limit, though his daughter
had brought nothing, and they jointly came far within the limit for two.

He found that the Triscoes were going to a quiet old hotel on the way to
Stuyvesant Square, quite in his own neighborhood, and he quickly arranged
for all the ladies and the general to drive together while he was to
follow with his son on foot and by car. They got away from the scene of
the customs' havoc while the steamer shed, with its vast darkness dimly
lit by its