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that he could enjoy his little joke without her.
    â€œBut Papa,” said Elsa, leaning again over the grating, “hadn’t you noticed another thing? The third class is empty, almost, only a dozen passengers, and yet they would not sell us third-class tickets. Don’t you think it was very wrong of the clerk in Mexico City to tell us there was no room in third class for us?”
    â€œWell, yes,” admitted her father, “in one way. In another, very good business. Here we are, first-class tickets and all, they have made already more than three hundred fifty dollars on us; you turn that into reichsmarks now and you have some real money.…”
    â€œBut there must be some other reason besides,” said Elsa.
    â€œOh yes, there are always a lot of good reasons and they know them all, for cheating us,” said Frau Lutz. “I wish you might have learned some of those reasons for your own use,” she told her husband, and long years of deeply cherished, never-to-be-settled grudges lay in her tone. The three walked on, a family clumsiness in their movements, eyes straight ahead and dull with small anxieties.
    â€œAnswer me one thing, my poor wife,” said Herr Lutz in a mild, reasoning voice which he knew exasperated his wife more than anything else. “Did we do so badly in Mexico after all? In any sense of the word? Did we by any stretch of your imagination fail? I think not.”
    â€œI no longer care what you think,” said Frau Lutz.
    â€œEven for you, that is going a little far,” said Herr Lutz. “And just the same it doesn’t keep me from thinking. And sometime maybe when you happen to be thinking you might think about how we’re going home, all in good health, with enough money, honestly earned, to start our own little hotel in St. Gallen.”
    â€œYes, after all these years,” said his wife, drearily. “Yes, now when it is too late, when nothing will be the same, when Elsa is grown up and a stranger to her own people—oh think what trouble we had to keep her from speaking Spanish first, before her mother tongue! Yes, now of course, we can go back in style, and set up in business and feel important. What for?”
    â€œAs for feeling important,” said Herr Lutz, “let us wait and see.”
    â€œMama,” said Elsa timidly, trying to change the subject, “my cabin mate is that American girl who came on board with that light-haired young man. I thought they were married, didn’t you? But he is in one cabin and she another.”
    â€œI am sorry to hear all this,” said her mother, severely. “I had hoped you might be with an older woman, somebody respectable. That girl, I don’t like her looks or her ways. Pantaloons in the street, imagine! And is she really traveling with a man who is not her husband?”
    â€œWell,” said Elsa, uncertainly, seeing that this topic was a failure also, “I suppose so. But she is in a separate cabin, after all.”
    â€œI hardly see the difference,” said her mother. “I am very sorry. Now listen carefully to me. You are to be always very reserved with that girl. Do not take her advice or follow her example in the smallest thing. Treat her with perfect coldness, don’t take up with her at all. Never be seen on deck with her. Don’t talk to her or listen when she talks. You are in very bad company, and I shall try to have your cabin changed.”
    â€œBut who would I be with then?” asked Elsa. “Another stranger.”
    â€œAh, yes,” sighed her mother, looking about her at various women passing them or walking near them. “Ah, yes, who knows? One may be worse than the other! Just you obey me, that is all!”
    â€œYes Mama,” said Elsa, attentively and submissively. Her father smiled at her and said, “That is our good little girl. You must always do as your mama says.”
    â€œBut Papa, when she