had been the custom in the former days of steamships, when the
hull had to be large enough to contain everything. As the more
modern hull held nothing but the machinery, it was small in
comparison with the superincumbent upper hull, and thus the force
of the engine, once needed to propel a vast mass through the
resisting medium of the ocean, was now employed upon a
comparatively small hull, the great body of the vessel meeting
with no resistance except that of the air.

It was not necessary that the two parts of these compound vessels
should always be the same. The upper hulls belonging to one of
the transatlantic lines were generally so constructed that they
could be adjusted to any one of their lower or motive-power
hulls. Each hull had a name of its own, and so the combination
name of the entire vessel was frequently changed.

It was not three o'clock when the Euterpe-Thalia passed through
the Narrows and moved slowly towards her pier on the Long Island
side of the city. The quarantine 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