Eighteen men, some expert firemen found elsewhere, and the rest green coal-passers like myself, were finally chosen, lined up in the street, counted for the twentieth time, it seemed, by the Hebrew's mathematical sons, and then marched in single file across the street and down the dock to the _Elbe's_ gang-plank, where the ship's doctor awaited us. The stoke-room was so short-handed that the man was forced to accept all of us, something that he certainly would not have done had there been a larger collection of men to choose from. He smiled significantly when he let me pass, and I was reminded of what a saloonkeeper had said to me earlier in the morning. I had gone to his place for breakfast, and he asked me whether I was looking for a job. I said that I was, explaining how long we all had waited for opportunities to ship. "You goin' as a passer?" he exclaimed. "Why, boy, they'll bury you at sea, sure. You can't stand the work. Just wait and see," he warned, as if waiting, seeing and sea-burial were necessary to substantiate his words. "Stay here with me," he went on, "and I'll give you a job." "Doing what?" "Oh, cleaning up and learning the business." I thanked him for his kindness, but insisted that I was going to ship. "Well, when they're tossing you overboard, don't blame me," he requested, replenishing my soup-plate as if it were the last "filler-in" I should ever have on land. When we were all in line, and marching to the ship, he waved me an _adios_ with a beer towel from his doorway, and reminded me not to forget what he had said. As in earlier days, when attending college and living in the lawyer's home, a lawyer's career had been ruthlessly thrown aside, I was now perhaps throwing away a wonderful chance to become a saloonkeeper--a great fat brewer, even, who could tell? Thus it is that opportunities come and go. I might now be living in ease and luxury in a mosquitoless palace on the Hoboken Heights. As it is, I am a poor struggler still--but for the time being unmolested by mosquitoes, thank heaven. Many and many times after our good ship had put to sea, and we had all been initiated in our work, I remembered my friend, the saloonkeeper, and temporarily regretted that I had not thrown my lot with his concern. Now, I know that it was all for the best that the coal-passer's job was preferred. Only the other day I learned with regret that the saloonkeeper became insane not so very long after I had known him, his monomania being sidewalks. They say he got so bad that he thought the ceiling of his saloon was a sidewalk, and it was when he tried to use the ceiling as a sidewalk for his empty beer kegs that he was pronounced incurably out of order. Once assigned to our different bunks on the _Elbe_, one of the head firemen told us off to our different watches. An officer, passing at this time, remarked that the head fireman had "a rum lot" of trimmers to handle.