“It is all right, Hephzy,” I answered. “This is the steamer. I know it doesn't look like one, but it is. This is the 'Plutonia' and we are on board at last.” Two hours later we leaned together over the rail and watched the lights of New York grow fainter behind us. Hephzibah drew a deep breath. “It is so,” she said. “It is really so. We ARE, aren't we, Hosy.” “We are,” said I. “There is no doubt of it.” “I wonder what will happen to us before we see those lights again.” “I wonder.” “Do you think HE--Do you think Little Frank--” “Hephzy,” I interrupted, “if we are going to bed at all before morning, we had better start now.” “All right, Hosy. But you mustn't say 'go to bed.' Say 'turn in.' Everyone calls going to bed 'turning in' aboard a vessel.” CHAPTER V In Which We View, and Even Mingle Slightly with, the Upper Classes It is astonishing--the ease with which the human mind can accustom itself to the unfamiliar and hitherto strange. Nothing could have been more unfamiliar or strange to Hephzibah and me than an ocean voyage and the “Plutonia.” And yet before three days of that voyage were at an end we were accustomed to both--to a degree. We had learned to do certain things and not to do others. Some pet illusions had been shattered, and new and, at first, surprising items of information had lost their newness and come to be accepted as everyday facts. For example, we learned that people in real life actually wore monocles, something, which I, of course, had known to be true but which had seemed nevertheless an unreality, part of a stage play, a “dress-up” game for children and amateur actors. The “English swell” in the performances of the Bayport Dramatic Society always wore a single eyeglass, but he also wore Dundreary whiskers and clothes which would have won him admittance to the Home for Feeble-Minded Youth without the formality of an examination. His “English accent” was a combination of the East Bayport twang and an Irish brogue and he was a blithering idiot in appearance and behavior. No one in his senses could have accepted him as anything human and the eyeglass had been but a part of his unreal absurdity. And yet, here on the “Plutonia,” were at least a dozen men, men of dignity and manner, who sported monocles and acted as if they were used to them. The first evening before we left port, one or two were in evidence; the next afternoon, in the Lounge, there were more. The fact that they were on an English ship, bound for England, brought the monocles out of their concealment, as Hephzy said, “like hoptoads after the first spring thaw.” Her amazed comments were unique. “But what good are they, Hosy?” she demanded. “Can they see with 'em?” “I suppose they can,” I answered. “You can see better with your spectacles than you can without them.”