It was all very well, so long as they were far away from America and never quite sure that a submarine mightn’t settle their future for them once and for all, to feel big, vague, heroic things about a new life and a new world and they two Twinklers going to conquer it; but when the new world was really upon them, and the new life, with all the multitudinous details that would have to be tackled, going to begin in a few hours, their hearts became uneasy and sank within them.  England hadn’t liked them.  Suppose America didn’t like them either?  Uncle Arthur hadn’t liked them.  Suppose Uncle Arthur’s friends didn’t like them either?  Their hearts sank to, and remained in, their boots.

Round Anna-Rose’s waist, safely concealed beneath her skirt from what Anna-Felicitas called the predatory instincts of their fellow-passengers, was a chamois-leather bag containing their passports, a letter to the bank where their L200 was, a letter to those friends of Uncle Arthur’s who were to be tried first, a letter to those other friends of his who were to be the second line of defence supposing the first one failed, and ten pounds in two L5 notes.

Uncle Arthur, grievously grumbling, and having previously used in bed most of those vulgar words that made Aunt Alice so miserable, had given Anna-Rose one of the L5 notes for the extra expenses of the journey till, in New York, she should be able to draw on the L200, though what expenses there could be for a couple of girls whose passage was paid Uncle Arthur was damned, he alleged, if he knew; and Aunt Alice had secretly added the other.  This was all Anna-Rose’s ready money, and it would have to be changed into dollars before reaching New York so as to be ready for emergencies on arrival.  She judged from the growing restlessness of the passengers that it would soon be time to go and change it.  How many dollars ought she to get?

Mr. Twist was absent, packing his things.  She ought to have asked him long ago, but they seemed so suddenly to have reached the end of their journey.  Only yesterday there was the same old limitless sea everywhere, the same old feeling that they were never going to arrive.  Now the waves had all gone, and one could actually see land.  The New World.  The place all their happiness or unhappiness would depend on.

She laid hold of Anna-Felicitas, who was walking about just as if she had never been prostrate on a deck-chair in her life, and was going to say something appropriate and encouraging on the Christopher and Columbus lines; but Anna-Felicitas, who had been pondering the L5 notes problem, wouldn’t listen.

“A dollar,” said Anna-Felicitas, worrying it out, “isn’t like a shilling or a mark, but on the other hand neither is it like a pound.”

“No,” said Anna-Rose, brought back to her immediate business.

“It’s four times more than one, and five times less than the other,” said Anna-Felicitas.  “That’s how you’ve got to count.  That’s what Aunt Alice said.”