“Except,” said I, “the aristocratic old families who can’t be weaned away from Palisades Park.”
Mr. Bowron interviewed us on the subject of hotels.
“There are only two or three first-class ones,” said Mr. Hanson. “The Biltmore’s fair. It’s got elevators and running hot water.”
“But no electric lights,” I objected.
“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Hanson. “They put in electricity and set the meter the week we left.”
Breakfast was ready, and for the first time on the trip Mr. Hanson ate with a confidence of the future. For the first time he ordered food that was good for him. Previously it hadn’t mattered.
When we went back on deck, the world’s largest open-face clock was on our left, and on our right the business district of Pelham’s biggest suburb. And immediately surrounding us were Peter James and Ring Once and the lounge steward and the deck steward and the dining-room stewards—in fact, all the stewards we’d seen and a great many we hadn’t.
“We’re trapped,” said Mr. Hanson. “Our only chance for escape is to give them all we’ve got. Be ready with your one-pounders and your silver pieces.”
At the end of this unequal conflict—the Battle of the Baltic—Rear-Admiral Lardner’s fleet was all shot to pieces, most of them the size of a dime, and when Mr. Brennan of Yonkers announced that his car would meet the ship and that he would gladly give me a ride to my hotel I could have kissed him on both cheeks. It took my customs inspector about a minute to decide that I was poor and honest. The baroness, though, when we left the dock, was engaged in argument with half a dozen officials, who must have been either heartless or blind.
Mr. Brennan’s chauffeur drove queerly. He insisted on sticking to the right side of the street, and slowed up at busy intersections, and he even paid heed to the traffic signals. In Paris or London he’d have been as much at home as a Mexican at The Hague.