I go inside once more to try the straps of my life-preserver. But we are sailing through a sunlit sea. And at dinner the philosopher at our table—he is a Hindu from Calcutta—says smilingly, “Now this will do very nicely for shipwreck weather, gentlemen, very nicely for shipwreck weather.” It is the round-faced Hollander at my right, of orthodox Presbyterian faith, who protests earnestly, “Ah, but please no. Do not jest.” The next day when the dishes slide back and forth between the table racks, none of us laugh when the Hollander says solemnly, “See, but if God should call us now.” Ah, if he should, our life boats would never last us to Heaven. They would crumple like floats of paper in Neptune’s hand. Eating our dessert, we look out on the terrible green and white sea that licks and slaps at the portholes and all of us are very still. The lace importer from New York at my left, is the most quiet of all. For eight days and nights we have escaped all the perils of the deep. And now it is the morning of the ninth day. You count them over like that momentously as God did when he made the world. What will to-morrow bring forth? Well, one prepares of course for landing. I sit up late, nervously censoring my note book through. The nearer we get to the British coast, the more incriminating it appears to be familiar with so much as the German woman movement. I dig my blue pencil deep through the name of Frau Cauer. I rip open the package of my letters of introduction. What will they do to a person who is going to meet a pacifist by her first name? That’s a narrow escape. Another letter is signed by a perfectly good loyal American who, however, has the misfortune to have inherited a Fatherland name from some generations before. Oh, I cannot afford to be acquainted with either of my friends. I’ve got to be pro-ally all wool and yard wide clear to the most inside seams of my soul. I’ve got to avoid even the appearance of guilt. So, stealthily I tiptoe from my stateroom to drop both compromising letters into the sea. Like this a journalist goes through Europe these days editing oneself, to be acceptable to the rows of men in khaki. So I edit and I edit and I edit myself until after midnight for the British government’s inspection. I try to think earnestly. What would a spy do? So that I may avoid doing it. And I go to bed so anxious lest I act like a spy that I dream I am one. When I awake on the morning of the tenth day, all our engines are still. And from bow to stern, our boat is all a-quiver with glad excitement. We have not been drowned! There beside us dances the little tender to take us ashore at Falmouth. FACING THE STEEL LINE OF INQUIRY