The steerage stewards and the interpreter under the direction of a junior officer appeared and ordered all the steerage passengers to pass up from the forward main deck to the hurricane deck and aft, leaving their baggage just where it was. Wild commotion broke forth, for this was preparatory action at last. Slowly the chattering, excited hundreds were got aft and crowded into the space usually given to second-cabin passengers, and after a long wait there, while we approached Quarantine, and the port doctor’s boat came out, and the _Chamberlain_ carrying the Ellis Island boarding-officers and a newspaper man or two, there were cries forward along the hurricane deck which indicated that the crowd was being passed back to steerage quarters. I knew we were about to pass before the port doctor’s deputy and the boarding-officers, and got our party together and into the line passing forward along the promenade deck. As we approached the forward end we saw the dour German doctor standing with a gray-whiskered man in uniform, on whose cap front was the welcome gold-thread eagle design of the United States service. As we came nearly abreast of them I saw another official on the right-hand side, and turned my head slightly to see what was occurring on that side of the line. I caught a glimpse of steerage stewards beyond the officials, hurrying the emigrants down the companion-way, and the next instant received a heavy raking blow on the bridge of my nose and up my forehead. It partly stunned and dazed me, and I was merely conscious of stumbling on and of having the spectacles which I wore for reading or distance-viewing hanging by the hook over one ear. Before I could even see, I was at the head of the companion-way, and the stewards were hustling my wife down the steps. I gathered from what she was saying that the German doctor had struck me, and, turning to look at him, saw he was looking after me with a sneer on his face. To go back would have been to spoil my investigations just at the last stage, and with a lamb-like meekness I went below, where my wife told how, having uncovered my head, as is the rule in passing the doctor, I had replaced my hat a second too soon as I turned to look to the right, and the German doctor had reached over her head and struck me with the back of his wrist, inflicting a heavy blow under the pretense of brushing my hat from my head. CHAPTER XVII WITHIN THE PORTALS OF THE NEW WORLD