"Well, I'll show you, as you're going to St. George—San Giorgio as you might say"—he chuckled—"and you can tell me what you think."
I fell into a study at this, a study that lasted until the train slid slowly into Jersey City and we joined the throng that were hurrying towards Chambers Street Ferry. I decided to let the matter stand over for the moment. It would not do to act illiberally towards a man who combined a knowledge of seafaring with Italian literature, and who had evidently arrived, however unacademically, at certain original judgments and criteria of life. I offered no remarks as the Erie ferry bore us swiftly across the glittering and congested Hudson to Chambers Street, and I observed that Mr. Carville was absorbed in watching how the vessel was piloted among the traffic. It was natural that his imagination should be stirred by a familiar skill. As we crossed the bows of an incoming liner I saw his eyes sweep over her, keen, critical, appraising. No doubt he saw many things that escaped my landward vision. For me ships are very much alike. I expect he realized this and forbore to bewilder me with matters of technical interest. I have a sneaking appreciation of the mystery and beauty of a ship in full sail on the open sea, an appreciation I scarcely cared to reveal to an engineer. He stood by my side on the upper deck, his corn-cob in his hand, imperturbably observant, a miracle of detached respectability. And he thought New York like Venice!
Nor did we talk very much as we walked quickly down West Street to the Battery. Once he looked at his watch and remarked that he wanted "to be aboard by ten." The sun shone on the water dazzlingly as we rounded the end of Manhattan, showing the hull of the Ellis Island ferry a black mass. The usual crowd of foreigners with their dark eyes and Slavic features, shoe-shine boys, touts and officials waited around the entrance. I put my hand on Mr. Carville's arm.
"Our steamer isn't in yet," I said. "Suppose we see them land."
He glanced up and nodded, and we paused.
As the ferry came alongside the crowd gradually drew together more closely, and some, who had been sitting in dejection on the seats, rose and joined us. A tall policeman walked to and fro, keeping us back, bending his head to listen to a woman with a baby. Young men in flashy button-boots and extravagantly-cut clothes chuckled among themselves, while two serious-looking men talked German, an endless argument. Above us the Stars and Stripes fluttered and snapped in the breeze, and the trains on the Elevated Road crawled carefully round the curve. Now and again the deep bellow of a steamer's whistle smote on our ears, smears of sound on the persistent roar of the city behind us. The feet of the little crowd shuffled as they shifted to get a better view, and two boys, chewing gum, climbed on the seats and stood up. A small girl of ten or so sped past on roller-skates, uttering shrill cries to a companion beyond the grass-plot. And then the gates opened and they came out to us, a little flock of frightened animals, each with his ticket pinned on his breast, each looking round for an instant as sheep do when let out of a pen, instantly herded by officials in peaked caps. A big, unshaved man in a black sheepskin cap opened his arms and the woman with the baby hurried to him. A smart girl behind us pushed through and went up to a sullen-looking old man with a Derby hat and a high-arched nose. The boys on the seat exchanged ribaldry that drew the eyes of the tall policeman to them, and they vanished. The little crowd of aliens began to move towards the East Side and we followed as far as the Staten Island Ferry. I turned to Mr. Carville, thinking he might have some comment to make. He shrugged his shoulders and drew out his little brass tobacco-box.
"Humph!" he said. "They've got it all to come," and began to pare the tobacco into his hand. I could detect no sympathy in his tone, only a grim humour and contempt for the credulity of those trembling peasants now hurrying to their doom. And as I thought of this, quite suddenly he began to talk of his brother.
"I've often wondered what Frank would have made of all this," he said, waving his hand towards the sweep of the Brooklyn Bridge. "Not that I'd like him to come near me and mine, but just out of curiosity, I've wondered."
"I should say he would be likely to get on well," I said.
"You're right—he would! He would take hold right away and as they say here get away with it. He's a citizen of the world, is Frank. He'd be on Fifth Avenue or in Sing Sing within a twelvemonth. But there's no need for him to come to America. He's fallen on his feet again apparently in London. I hope he stops there."