Mr. George then left the ship and went back to the office in Wall Street, to engage the berths and pay the passage money. The office was spacious and handsomely furnished, and there were several clerks in it writing at desks. There were two rooms, and in the back room was a table, with large plans of the ship upon it, on which all the cabins and state rooms of the several decks were represented in their proper positions. The names of the various passengers that had engaged passage in the ship were written in the several state rooms which they had chosen. The clerk wrote the names, _Master Holiday_ and _Miss Holiday_, in the state rooms which Mr. George pointed out to him, and, when he had done so, Mr. George looked over all the other names that had been written in before, to see if there were any persons whom he knew among them. To his great gratification he found that there were several such. "Yes," said he, as he rose up from the examination of the plan, "there are several gentlemen there who will be very ready, under the circumstances of the case, to do Mr. Holiday the favor of looking after his children during the voyage." Being thus, in a measure, relieved of all solicitude, Mr. George walked about the room a few minutes, examining the pictures of the several steamers of the line which were hanging on the walls, and then went away. CHAPTER II. THE EMBARKATION. The time fixed for the sailing of the steamer was on Tuesday morning; and Mr. George, in order to have time to communicate with some of the gentlemen to whose care he intended to intrust the two children, planned his journey to New York so as to arrive there in good season on Monday. He supposed that he should be able, without any difficulty, to find one or the other of them in the afternoon or evening of that day. "And if worst comes to the worst," added he to himself, in his reflections on the subject, "I can certainly find them at the ship, by going on board an hour or two before she sails, and watching the plank as the passengers come up from the pier." Worst did come to the worst, it seems; for when Mr. George came home at nine o'clock in the evening, on Monday, and Rollo came up to him very eagerly in the parlor of the boarding house, to ask him whom he had found to take charge of them, he was forced to confess that he had not found any one. "I am glad of it!" exclaimed Rollo, joyfully. "I am glad of it! I like it a great deal better to take care of ourselves." He then began dancing about the room, and finally ran off in great glee, to inform Jane of the prospect before them. Rollo was very ambitious of being considered a man.