“You didn’t get the thanks you deserved, either, Doctor von Kammacher,” he said in his broad dialect, rich in vowel sounds, and recounted a number of cases, of which Frederick had not known, in which good had been repaid by evil tattle.  “The people around Plassenberg are not fit for men like you and me.  Men like you and me belong in America, the land of liberty.”

Elsewhere, Frederick would have resented being placed in the same category as this rowdy, for whom, he recalled, the police were searching.  But here he felt no indignation.  On the contrary, he was pleasantly surprised, as if by an unexpected meeting with a good friend.

“The world’s a small place,” said Frederick, passing over the theme of ingratitude and the land of liberty, “the world’s a small place.  Yet I am surprised to see you here.  But I’m wet to the skin, and have to go change my clothes.”

On his way to the cabin, on the promenade deck, he encountered the blond captain of the Roland, Von Kessel, who presented himself to Frederick.

“The weather is not quite up to mark,” he said by way of excuse for the little mishap on the lower bridge.  “If you enjoy standing in front there, you’d better put on one of our oilskins.”

Now that the vessel’s movement was more accentuated, the cabin, in which Frederick changed his clothes, was a problematical place of abode.  The light came from a round port-hole of heavy glass.  When the wall with the port-hole in it rose and turned inward like a slanting roof, the sunlight from a rift between the clouds in the sky fell upon the mahogany berth opposite.  Sitting on the edge of the lower berth, Frederick tried to steady himself, holding his head bent to keep from striking against his upper berth, and frantically endeavouring not to follow the receding movement of the wall behind.  The cabin was rolling in unison with the vessel’s movement.  Sometimes it seemed to Frederick as if the port-hole wall were the ceiling, and the ceiling the right wall; then again as if the right wall were the ceiling, and the ceiling the port-hole wall, while the actual port-hole wall, as if inviting him to jump, shoved itself at right angles under his feet—­during which the port-hole was wholly under water and the cabin in darkness.

It is no easy matter to dress and undress in an oscillating room.  That the vessel’s motion could have changed so markedly within the one hour since he left the cabin, astonished Frederick.  The simple operation of drawing off his boots and trousers, finding others in his trunk, and putting them on again became a gymnastic feat.  He had to laugh, and comparisons occurred to him, which made him laugh still more.  But his laughter was not heartfelt.  Each time he received a knock, or had to jump to regain his balance, he muttered exclamations and instinctively contrasted all this with the comfortable waking up from sleep in his own house.  Groaning and labouring, he said to himself: