When they left the pier, they saw Stoss still surrounded by reporters, working his jaws with incredible rapidity, as he discoursed upon himself and the role he had played in the sinking of the Roland.  They were about to enter their cab after their flight, through the crowd, when an elderly gentleman, panting breathlessly and perspiring, despite the nipping wind, stepped up to Ingigerd Hahlstroem with, “I beg your pardon, but I come from Webster and Forster.”  He took off his hat and wiped the inside band with his handkerchief.  “I was told—­I was told—­I came in a carriage—­a carriage is waiting—­” He stopped, too exhausted to continue.

“Miss Hahlstroem cannot possibly appear this evening.”

“Oh, Miss Hahlstroem looks very well!”

“See here,” said Frederick ready to flare up.

Webster and Forster’s agent put his hat back on his bald pate.

“It would be the greatest mistake if Miss Hahlstroem were not to dance to-night,” he said.  “I was commissioned to provide her with money and anything else she needed.  There’s my carriage.  Rooms have already been engaged for her at the Astor.”

Frederick grew angry.

“I am a physician,” he snapped, “and as a physician, I tell you Miss Hahlstroem will not dance to-night, nor for several nights.”

“Will you make good to Miss Hahlstroem her financial loss?”

“What I shall do in regard to that is neither your nor Webster and Forster’s business.”

Frederick thought he had disposed of the matter, but the agent became offensive.

“Who are you, sir?  My dealings are with Miss Hahlstroem exclusively.  What right have you to mix in this affair?”

“I don’t think I could dance to-night,” Ingigerd interposed.

“You will lose that feeling as soon as you step on the stage.  The manager’s wife gave me a letter for you.  Her maid is at the Astor with everything you need.  She is entirely at your disposal.”

“Our Petronilla is a jewel, too,” Willy Snyders interjected.  “If you tell her what you need, Miss Hahlstroem, she’ll have it for you in five minutes.”  With the insistence of a seducer, he helped Ingigerd into the cab.

“Very well, then,” said the agent emphatically, “you are breaking a contract, and I warn you of the consequences.  I will have to ask you for your address.”

Willy Snyders shouted a number on 107th street.  The agent jotted it down in his note-book.

The cab with Ingigerd, Frederick, and Willy in it was transported from Hoboken to New York in the usual way, jammed in between other carriages and trucks on the ferry-boat.  A newsboy on the ferry handed into the cab a copy of The Sun, with whole columns already describing the disaster.  The authors of the information were probably the health officers and Captain Butor.  When Willy Snyders began to speak of the Roland, Frederick checked him with a nod toward Ingigerd; but she had of herself noticed the report in the paper and asked if they had been the first to bring the news to New York.