of her late neighbours in Rivington Street. And two men in the
second cabin were being seen off by detectives, surely the crowning
compliment a great nation can bestow. The cavernous customs shed was
congested with friends and relatives, and Sam Marlowe, heading for the
gang-plank, was only able to make progress by employing all the muscle
and energy which Nature had bestowed upon him, and which during the
twenty-five years of his life he had developed by athletic exercise.
However, after some minutes of silent endeavour, now driving his shoulder
into the midriff of some obstructing male, now courteously lifting some
stout female off his feet, he had succeeded in struggling to within a few
yards of his goal, when suddenly a sharp pain shot through his right arm
and he spun round with a cry.

It seemed to Sam that he had been bitten, and this puzzled him, for New
York crowds, though they may shove and jostle, rarely bite.

He found himself face to face with an extraordinarily pretty girl.

She was a red-haired girl with the beautiful ivory skin which goes with
red hair. Her eyes, though they were under the shadow of her hat, and
he could not be certain, he diagnosed as green, or maybe blue, or
possibly grey. Not that it mattered, for he had a catholic taste in
feminine eyes. So long as they were large and bright, as were
the specimens under his immediate notice, he was not the man to
quibble about a point of colour. Her nose was small, and on the very
tip of it there was a tiny freckle. Her mouth was nice and wide, her
chin soft and round. She was just about the height which every girl
ought to be. Her figure was trim, her feet tiny, and she wore one of
those dresses of which a man can say no more than that they look pretty
well all right.