Adjoining the kitchen is the serving-room or pantry, frescoed with silver coffee-pots and cream-mugs and lined with shelves filled with crockery, while the hook-dotted ceiling glitters with an hundred other pieces of silverware which swing and scintillate with every motion of the ship. The shelves are really wooden pockets, faced with strips of wood, which keep the dishes from rolling out, and stowed away there are cups and plates by the hundred. Along the side of the room is a big hot press, having on its top all manner of indentations for the trenchers, saucepans and soup pots which are sent in from the kitchen laden with food at mealtime. This is flanked by a line of glistening tea and coffee urns, while in a convenient corner is a roomy icebox for the cold meats and butter. To the kitchen and the pantry the storeroom is always sending tribute, and they send it to the glass-doored dining-room which, with its long tables, its dazzling white cloths, and its glittering array of silver and glass, looks at night like an enchanted realm. Seats at table are assigned by the steward or the purser, who gives out the seats to those who ask for them first. Each seat is numbered and the passenger receives a billet with his seat number on it when he goes to his first meal on board. Formerly there was a struggle for seats at the captain's table, but now the wise and wary ones rally about the purser and the doctor, for the commander's duties seldom permit him to go below save at dinnertime. Still, wherever his place at table may be fixed, the cabin passenger finds that no opportunity is neglected to serve his comfort and lighten the tedium of the voyage. On the German lines a band accompanies every vessel, and plays through the long first-cabin dinner, and again on deck in the evening. All German and American holidays are observed on these boats, and when Christmas comes to the travelers at sea, they find themselves in the midst of a Fatherland festival, the chief feature of which is a brightly adorned and illuminated tree. Nor are the steerage passengers forgotten on these occasions, amusements, and a special feast being provided for them.