Then the mail and trunks being off, and that boat having veered away, another and somewhat smaller one came alongside and we first, and then the second class passengers, went aboard, and I watched the great ship growing less and less as we pulled away from it. It was immense from alongside, a vast skyscraper of a ship. At a hundred feet, it seemed not so large, but more graceful; at a thousand feet, all its exquisite lines were perfect--its bulk not so great, but the pathos of its departing beauty wonderful; at two thousand feet, it was still beautiful against the granite ring of the harbor; but, alas, it was moving. The captain was an almost indistinguishable spot upon his bridge. The stacks--in their way gorgeous--took on beautiful proportions. I thought, as we veered in near the pier and the ship turned within her length or thereabouts and steamed out, I had never seen a more beautiful sight. Her convoy of gulls was still about her. Her smoke-stacks flung back their graceful streamers. The propeller left a white trail of foam. I asked some one: “When does she get to Liverpool?” “At two in the morning.” “And when do the balance of the passengers land?” (We had virtually emptied the first cabin.) “At seven, I fancy.” Just then the lighter bumped against the dock. I walked under a long, low train-shed covering four tracks, and then I saw my first English passenger train--a semi-octagonal-looking affair--(the ends of the cars certainly looked as though they had started out to be octagonal) and there were little doors on the sides labeled “First,” “First,” “First.” On the side, at the top of the car, was a longer sign: “Cunard Ocean Special--London--Fishguard.” CHAPTER IV SERVANTS AND POLITENESS Right here I propose to interpolate my second dissertation on the servant question and I can safely promise, I am sure, that it will not be the last. One night, not long before, in dining with a certain Baron N. and Barfleur at the Ritz in New York this matter of the American servant came up in a conversational way. Baron N. was a young exquisite of Berlin and other European capitals. He was one of Barfleur’s idle fancies. Because we were talking about America in general I asked them both what, to them, was the most offensive or objectionable thing about America. One said, expectorating; the other said, the impoliteness of servants. On the ship going over, at Fishguard, in the train from Fishguard to London, at London and later in Barfleur’s country house I saw what the difference was. Of course I had heard these differences discussed before _ad lib._ for years, but hearing is not believing. Seeing and experiencing is.