“That’s easy,” he said gaily.  “Let me fix it;” and, forthwith, the thing was fixed.  Without the slightest hesitation he made himself responsible for M’riar in every way which an ingenious government had managed to devise through years of effort.

The gratitude of the three travelers was earnest and was volubly expressed in spite of his determined efforts to prevent them from expressing it.  M’riar would have thrown her arms about his neck and kissed him had not Anna thoughtfully prevented it, after one quick glance at the astonishing appearance of the delighted child’s tear-and lunch-stained face.

And so it came about that the Herr Kreutzer and his daughter Anna, with her humble slave and worshiper, M’riar, were ferried back from Ellis Island to New York within a half-a-dozen hours of the moment when they landed on it.  As they went Moresco, himself, apparently a citizen, and free to go at once, was still there in the building, working with his boasted “pull” to help his countrymen.  He shook his fist at them as they departed and cried insults after them.  Few immigrants have ever been passed through in briefer time than was the flute-player; few government inspectors at the landing station have ever been enabled, by a stroke of good luck from a cloudless sky, to take home to their wives, at night, as large a roll of crisp, new money (yellow-backed) as an inspector took home to his wife that night.

“Gee, Bill!” the wife exclaimed when she had finished choking.  “When do you expect the cops?”

“What cops?” he naturally asked.

“Them that’ll come to pinch you for bank-robbery,” she answered, fondling the certificates with reverent, delighted fingers.

An episode of their return from Ellis Island to Manhattan much puzzled Vanderlyn.  Puffing and blowing from his hurry (which had been less adroit than Vanderlyn’s) they met Karrosch on the New York pier, about to start in search of Kreutzer.

“Ah,” he said cordially, “I wish to talk with you.  I have the largest orchestra in all America and wish to offer you the place of my first flute.  You are very lucky to have had me on the ship with you.  I shall be glad to pay—­”

Kreutzer interrupted him with courteous shaking of the head.  “I thank you, sir,” he said, with firm decision.  “I cannot play first flute in your large orchestra.”

“But,” said the astonished Karrosch, “I will pay—­”

“I much regret,” said Kreutzer, “that I cannot play first flute in your large orchestra.”

Vanderlyn, not less than Karrosch, was bewildered by this episode.  Only Anna was not in the least surprised by it, although she did not understand it.  She knew that he had many times refused alluring offers of the sort in London, always without an explanation of his reasons for so doing.

In the little rooms which they had found for temporary lodging place, Herr Kreutzer sat that evening, with a well-cleaned M’riar standing by and trying to devise some way of adding to his comfort.  He had never given much thought to the child, before, he realized; he had accepted her as one of many facts of small importance.  Now, though, he noted the devoted gaze with which her eyes were following Anna as she moved about the room, arranging little things.