The barbershop lay aft, and nearby one could look through glass panes upon the working of the cylinders and pistons. Frederick toilsomely clambered up to the promenade deck and crept into the overcrowded smoking-room. Though it disgusted him to be wedged into a small space with a lot of noisy men, he had come here in the desire to escape the wild orgy of his thoughts. Doctor Wilhelm had kept a place for him. "The doctor tells me you were in the steerage, and a beautiful Deborah made a dangerous impression upon you," the captain said, smiling roguishly. Frederick laughed. He ordered beer, and the conversation was jolly from the start. In their corner the skat players were sitting over their cards. They were business men, all of apoplectic constitution. They had been drinking beer and playing skat ever since breakfast, in fact, except when they slept, ever since boarding the steamer. The conversation in the room was of no interest to them. Even the weather failed to elicit any questions from them. They seemed to be insensible to the tossing of the great vessel, or the dismal howling of the wind. The force of the roll was so tremendous that Frederick involuntarily clutched at the thing nearest to him. Up went the port side, down went the starboard. Up went the starboard, down went the port side. Sometimes Frederick felt as if port and starboard might plunge one over the other; in which case the Roland's keel would float above water, while the bridge, masts, and smoke-stacks would be submerged at a distance below the surface. And in that case all would be lost; but those skat players, it seemed to him, would go on playing undisturbed. Hahlstroem's tall figure came creeping with bent head into the tobacco smoke. His clear, cold, critical eyes roved about looking for a seat. He paid no attention to the armless man, who jestingly shouted an ironic remark to him. With cool politeness he seated himself at the greatest possible distance from Stoss, drew a pouch of tobacco from his pocket, and filled a short Dutch pipe. Frederick's immediate thought was, "Where is Achleitner?" "How is your daughter feeling?" Doctor Wilhelm asked. "Oh, she's just a little upset now. The weather will be getting better, I suppose." The whole company, which, of course consisted of the men either by nature or from frequent exposure proof against seasickness, now entered into the usual discussion of the weather. "Is it true, Captain," somebody asked, "that last night we nearly collided with a derelict?" The captain smiled, raised his brows, and made no reply. "Where are we now, Captain? Was there fog last night? I saw some snow fall. And for at least an hour I heard the siren blow every two minutes." But Captain von Kessel remained highly monosyllabic in everything pertaining to the management of the vessel and the prospects for a good or bad crossing. "Is it true that there is gold bullion on board for the treasury in Washington?" Von Kessel smiled and sent a thin wreath of cigarette smoke curling through his moustache. "That would be carrying coals to Newcastle," remarked Wilhelm. And now the great theme, the theme of themes, became the general topic of conversation. Each of the travellers, of course, straightway had a picture of his own fortune in mind, every cent of it, or else tried to make an accurate mental calculation. They all turned into calculating machines, while aloud comparing the capitals of the great American banking firms, the Bank of England, the Credit Lyonnais and the wealth of all the American millionaires. Even the skat players gave their attention for a few moments at a time. America was then suffering from a business depression, a crisis, as the political economists dub it. The causes of the depression came up for discussion. Most of the Americans present happened to be Democrats, and they threw the blame on the Republicans. The Tammany Tiger was the subject of especial execration. It not only controlled New York City, the mayor of which was a creature of Tammany, but had also put its men into the most influential positions throughout the land. And every Tammany man knew how to shear his sheep. As a result, the American people were thoroughly bled. The corruption in the highest offices was said to be on a tremendous scale. Millions of dollars were appropriated to the navy, but if a man-of-war actually happened to be built, the thing was a great achievement, since the money, long before it was applied to its proper purpose, sifted down into the pockets of peaceful Americans, whose interest in the navy was of the slightest. "I shouldn't care to be buried in America," cried Stoss, in his sharp voice. "It would be too dreary and boresome for me in my grave. I hate their spitting and their ice-water." The burst of laughter that greeted his remark encouraged him to further sallies. "Americans are parrots, incessantly chattering two words, dollar and business, dollar and business, dollar and business. Those two words have been death to culture in America. An American doesn't even know what it is to have the Englishman's spleen. Think of the fearfulness of living in a country called the land of dollars. We have human beings living in Europe. The Americans regard everything, even their fellow-men, from the point of view of the number of dollars they represent. If a thing can't be reckoned in dollars, they have no eyes for it. And then Carnegie and Company come and want to astonish us with their disgusting shopkeeper's philosophy. Do you think they're helping the world on by slicing off some of the world's dollars and then returning some of the sliced off dollars with a great flourish of trumpets? Do you think that if they do us the favour to give us some of their money, we'll throw overboard our Mozart and Beethoven, our Kant and Schopenhauer, our Schiller and Goethe, our Rembrandts, Leonardos, Michael Angelos, in short, all our wealth of art and intellect? What is a miserable cur of an American millionaire, a dollar maniac, as compared with all those great men? Let him come and ask us for alms."