impresario had said saddened him a little as he reflected on it. He
had begun to hope that, when they landed (not before), he might be of
service to the pair; but if what Karrosch had said was true, then they
would not need his kindnesses. Almost he had made up his mind, thus
soon, that the shy little German girl was the one woman in the world
for him, so he found it difficult to stop himself from hoping that the
fat manager's predictions would prove false; that the flute-player
might really find difficulty in arranging a career in the United
States; that he, himself, might prove to be essential to the
development of his opportunity.

He felt a little gloomy, when, long after most of the ship's company
had gone to sleep, he sought his stateroom. Fear that he would find it
quite impossible to win his way even to acquaintance, much depressed
him.

But the very day the ship turned into the wide beauty of the Lower
Bay, a situation grew out of the commonplace of life upon the
steerage-deck which sharply and dramatically involved him with the two
who had so interested him.

The steerage passengers were dancing to the music of a concertina,
many of them, more especially the Italians, joining in the merriment
with a gay fervor born of their elation at approach to the rich
mysteries of the new land they sought. Much cheap wine had been
consumed among them, and in some of them this had, already, wrought
its vicious alchemy and changed the gold of sunny tempers into the
dross of ugliness. Among those most affected by the liquor was the man
Moresco, who so continually boasted of the great things he had done in
New York politics and who, since his rebuff by the old German, when he