rules invented by their superiors in authority. The Swiss veteran who walked on crutches, having lost one of his legs in the Civil War, was particularly attentive while I was being cross-examined, and nodded approvingly whenever I scored a point with my answers. He whispered something to the other officials, and they finally informed me that I could pass on, and I was conducted promptly to the Labor Bureau of Castle Garden. My Swiss friend looked me up a little later and informed me that the examiners had made an exception in my favor and admitted me, and that I must look sharp and find a job as soon as possible. * * * * * As I sat in the Labor Bureau waiting for somebody to come along and pick me out as a worthy candidate for some job, I could not help surveying those of my fellow immigrants who, like myself, sat there waiting for a job. I really believed that they were in a class below me, and yet they had had no trouble in being admitted. They had not needed favors on the part of the officials in order to be admitted. I had, and therefore, I inferred, they must have appeared to the officials to be more desirable. It was true, I said, arguing with myself, that they had a definite trade; they undoubtedly had some money; and they certainly looked more prosperous than I did, judging by their clothes. But why should the possession of a trade, of money, or of clothes stand so much higher in America than it did in Idvor, my native village? We had a blacksmith, a wheelwright, and a barber in Idvor; they were our craftsmen; and we had a Greek storekeeper who had a lot of money and wore expensive city-made clothes, but there was not one respectable Serb peasant in Idvor, no matter how poor, who did not think that he was superior to these people who had only a transient existence in our historic village. The knowledge of our traditions and our implicit belief in them made us feel superior to people who wandered about like gypsies with no traditions, and with nothing to anchor them to a definite place. A newcomer to our village was closely scrutinized, and he was judged not so much by his skill in a craft, nor by his money, nor by his clothes, but by his personality, by the reputation of his family, and by the traditions of the people to whom he belonged. The examiners at Castle Garden seemed to attach no importance to these things, because they did not ask me a single question concerning my family, the history of my village, or the history of the military frontier and of the Serb race. It was no wonder, said I, consoling myself, that I appeared to them less desirable than many of the other immigrants who would never have been allowed to settle in Idvor, and whose society on the immigrant ship had interested me so little, and, in fact, had often been repulsive to me, because I could not help considering many of them a sort of spiritual muckers. My admission by a special favor of the examiners was a puzzle