Our new passengers were crowding aboard the ship when we returned. They were a polyglot assortment, English, German, French, Hungarian--a happy-looking lot, certainly, and eager for the housing and comfort of the ship. But one dear old soul, a German music-master--any one could tell that at first glance--was in no hurry for the cabin. He had been looking forward to that trip. Perhaps this was his first sight of the sea and shipping and all the things he had wanted so long. He came to where I was looking over the rail, his head bare, his white hair blowing in the wind. He looked at me anxiously. "Haben Sie Deutsch?" he asked. I confessed that I still had a small broken assortment of German on hand, such as it was. He pointed excitedly to a vessel lying near us--a ship with an undecipherable name in the Greek character. "Greek," he said, "it is Greek--a vessel from Greece!" He was deeply moved. To him that vessel--a rather poor, grimy affair--with its name in the characters of Homer and Æschylus was a thing to make his blood leap and his eyes grow moist, because to him it meant the marvel and story of a land made visible--the first breath of realization of what before had just been a golden dream. I had been thinking of those things, too. We did not mind the cold, and stood looking down at the Greek vessel while we sailed away. But a change has come over the spirit of our ship. It is a good ship still, with a goodly company--only it is not the same. We lost some worthy people in Genoa and we took on this European invasion. It is educational, and here in the smoking-room I could pick up all the languages I need so much if I were willing to listen and had an ear for such things. I could pick up customs, too. It is after dinner, and the smoking-room is crowded with mingled races of both sexes, who have come in for their coffee and their cigarettes, their gossip and their games. Over there in one corner is a French group--Parisian, without doubt--the women are certainly that, otherwise they could not chatter and handle their cigarettes in that dainty way--and they are going-on and waving their hands and turning their eyes to heaven in the interest and ecstasy of their enjoyment. Games do not interest them--they are in themselves sufficient diversion to one another. It is different with a group of Germans at the next table; they have settled down to cards--pinochle, likely enough--and they are playing it soberly--as soberly as that other group who are absorbed in chess. At still another table a game of poker is being organized, and from that direction comes the beloved American tongue, carrying such words as "What's the blue chips worth?" "Shall we play jack-pots?" "Does the dealer ante?" and in these familiar echoes I recognize the voices of friends.