One man whom I knew to be of independent means and in no wise an unfit person under the law to be admitted was going about in a very nervous state, his hand constantly on some papers in his breast pocket. I had talked with him before, and he had told me he had had a store in Salerno. Now I approached him and drew him into conversation about the land already in sight, and before long he drew out the papers he had in his pocket. In addition to his passport and his regular ticket of health he had the naturalization papers of a full-fledged American citizen. The name on them was not the name on his ticket of health, and which would be the same on the ship’s manifest, and I told him that if he endeavored to use the naturalization papers at the docks he would certainly get into trouble. He was greatly frightened and was very suspicious of me, so much so that I was unable to get any further information out of him. I found one of his friends aboard who was a man of more experience, and after telling him just what lay before the Salerno man if he attempted to use the naturalization papers, I persuaded him to find out where and how the Salerno man got them. In half an hour he came back and said the Salerno man was below, weeping, and ready to commit suicide, but had told him that he had gone with three other men to a man in the first wine-shop on the Strada del Duomo off the Strada Nuova in Naples, and had paid fifty lire each for American citizens’ papers brought home by returning emigrants, and the four were to receive fifteen lire each if they returned them after use. The three other men had sailed on the _Citta di Napoli_. Numbers of the people were privately taking out and setting aside varying sums from their slender stores of money, with which to “pay something to the American inspector and American doctor.” So accustomed were they to extortion by officials, that they refused to believe me when I told them that it would cease at Ellis Island. They were astounded and deeply puzzled when it did. Giuseppe Rota followed me wherever I went, for I had promised to lend him the money to replace his stolen seventy lire, and though we were hours and hours yet from Ellis Island he was afraid the ship would dock at any moment, a giant in the uniform of an American immigrant inspector would appear and demand to see twelve dollars, and I would be out of sight, in which case he would be locked up and sent back. As we approached Sandy Hook the alternate glee and depression of the groups were pathetic. Even Antonio was trembling with excitement and said to me: “Suppose they will not let me back in. Can’t I tell them just to telephone up to my bank in Stonington, and they will tell them that I got a wife and property there, and it will be all right.” Camela’s tears were constantly ready to fall, for there dwelt in her heart a dread that something would arise to prevent her reunion with Giuseppe.