As she rode at anchor in the Mersey on a certain sailing day in March, spick-and-span with fresh paint, brasswork sparkling in the sunshine, flags snapping in the breeze, the _Alsatian_ was a handsome picture to greet the passengers who arrived in the special train from London and were transferred on board in the paddle-wheel tender. There were fewer than a hundred of them in the first cabin, for the season of the year was between high tides of travel east and west. It was a tradition of the International Line that its steamers should sail precisely on the stroke of the hour appointed. More than five minutes’ delay was viewed by the port superintendents in Liverpool and New York as a nautical crime. Therefore when noon came and there was none of the activity of departure, the passengers were curious. A loquacious young man, of the noisy breed which makes the English say unkind things about American tourists, ordered another cocktail of the smoking-room steward and pettishly exclaimed: “This right-on-the-minute business is all a bluff. The gangway hasn’t been hoisted and the tender is still alongside. This ship is nowhere near ready to start. Slow country--slow people, these Britishers. We can show ’em a few things, bet your life.” A nervous, thin-faced gentleman who had been fidgeting between the deck and the smoking-room door chimed in to say: “Confound it, I hate to be behind time! I can’t stand it! What’s the matter with this steamer? Why don’t the officers tell us something?” Several passengers listened deferentially to this jerky protest. The speaker was immensely, notoriously rich, and, although dyspepsia had played hob with his internal workings, and his temper was chronically on edge, he was an enviable personage in the eyes of many American citizens. Whether he toiled or loafed, his millions were working night and day to earn more millions for him. It could make no essential difference under heaven at what hour the _Alsatian_ should carry him out of Liverpool, for he could not be happy anywhere; but the delay made him acutely miserable. An old man with kindly, scrutinizing eyes laid down his cigar to comment: “My dear sir, I crossed the ocean in a sailing-packet some forty-odd years ago, and we anchored in the channel two weeks waiting for a fair wind, and were fifty-seven days to Sandy Hook.” “Times have changed, thank God!” snapped the great Jenkins P. Chase, of the bankrupt digestion. “And changed not altogether for the better when it comes to all this fuss and clatter to get somewhere else in a hurry, my friend. It is a national disease,” was the smiling, tolerant reply. Jenkins P. Chase glanced at his watch, muttered something, and darted on deck as if a bee had stung him.