“Do you suppose they understand anything of the meaning of that division,” asked Hamilton, “why some go on this side and some on the other!”

“They don’t at all,” was the reply.  “You will notice that there are no signs up, and that no attempt is made—­at this point—­to talk to the immigrant or to try to make him understand anything.  Then, too, since all the members of a family or party are kept together, there is no reason why they should make a disturbance.  They simply go where they are sent.  If we separated the families, sending some on one side and some on the other, then there would be trouble!”

“That’s true,” said Hamilton, “in many cases they couldn’t read the signs, and they don’t know at all what the doctors’ marks mean.”

“Exactly, and once past the inspector, there is no getting out or coming back, for the two passages lead directly into two series of rooms from which there is no outlet except in a given direction.”

“But the others who are all right,—­where do they go?” asked the boy.

“They’re not safe yet,” his conductor answered “They have only passed a preliminary looking over.  All that this first group of doctors does, remember, is to detect the questionable or to pass the obviously unquestionable—­whichever way you like to put it, and thus avoid delay in the primary inspection room.”

“Which group are we going to see first?”

“Those who have been passed,” was the reply, “because most of them will go right out, and you can follow that more easily.”

Going up the stairs, Hamilton found himself in an immense room all divided up into little lanes by bars and gratings.  Each of these lanes bore a large number suspended over its entrance, corresponding to the number of one of the manifest sheets of the vessel, and likewise to the number pinned on the clothing of every immigrant while he was still on the vessel, when his name was tallied with the manifest sheet.

“I see the reason of those numbers they have pinned on them now,” said Hamilton, “it’s all the same principle, to avoid talk and questioning.”

“Certainly,” his friend said, “and if you look a little closely, you will see that in addition to the big number on the card that is pinned on, there is also a smaller number.”

“I had noticed that,” Hamilton answered, “and I was going to ask you what it was for.”

“That is the number of the name on the manifest sheet,” the other replied.  “Thus, for example if Giordano Bruno is the tenth name on the seventh manifest sheet, this man at the top of the stairs will guide him into aisle number seven.  Then, when his turn comes and he has moved up to the desk at the end of the line, the inspector doesn’t have to waste time questioning him, and finding the place on the manifest sheet.  He looks at the number, runs his finger down to the tenth name, and has him at once.”

“It’s a great system,” said Hamilton admiringly.