Before very long we were standing by one of the furnace rooms, and the sooty-visaged man threw open the iron doors of the furnace.  In the glare of light that rushed forth everything near stood out almost as vividly as it would have done in a steady gleam of lightning.  The fireman instantly became a startling silhouette, and the coal that he shovelled into what was like a flaming mouth of a cavern seemed sparkling black diamonds.  The snow-flakes glimmered as the wind swept them by the wide-open window, and in the distance were seen the lights and the dim outline of another boat rushing toward the city.  Clang! the iron doors are shut, and all is obscure again.

“Now the boat has had its supper,” said Bobsey.  “O dear!  I wish I could have a big hot supper.”

The smoking-room door stood open, and we lingered near it for some moments, attracted first by a picture of a great fat ox, that suggested grassy meadows, plowing, juicy steaks, and other pleasant things.  Then our attention was drawn to a man, evidently a cattle-dealer, who was holding forth to others more or less akin to him in their pursuits.

“Yes,” he was saying, “people in the country eat a mighty lot of cow-beef, poor and old at that.  I was buying calves out near Shawangunk Mountains last week, and stopped at a small tavern.  They brought me a steak and I tried to put my knife in it—­thought the knife might be dull, but knew my grinders weren’t.  Jerusalem!  I might have chawed on that steak till now and made no impression.  I called the landlord, and said, ’See here, stranger, if you serve me old boot-leather for steak again I’ll blow on your house.’—­’I vow,’ he said, ’it’s the best I kin get in these diggin’s.  You fellers from the city buy up every likely critter that’s for sale, and we have to take what you leave.’  You see, he hit me right between the horns, for it’s about so.  Bless your soul, if I’d took in a lot of cow-beef like that to Steers and Pinkham, Washington Market, they’d ’a taken my hide off and hung me up ’longside of my beef.”

“Grantin’ all that,” said another man, “folks in the country would be a sight better off if they’d eat more cow-beef and less pork.  You know the sayin’ about ‘out of the frying-pan into the fire’?  Well, in some parts I’ve travelled they had better get out of the fryin’- pan, no matter where they fetch up.”

We went away laughing, and I said:  “Don’t you be troubled, Mousie; we won’t go to the frying-pan altogether to find roses for your cheeks.  We’ll paint them red with strawberries and raspberries, the color put on from the inside.”

As time passed, the storm increased, and the air became so thick with driving snow that the boat’s speed was slackened.  Occasionally we “slowed up” for some moments.  The passengers shook their heads and remarked, dolefully, “There’s no telling when we’ll arrive.”

I made up my mind that it would be good economy for us all to have a hearty hot supper, as Bobsey had suggested; and when, at last, the gong resounded through the boat, we trooped down with the others to the lower cabin, where there were several long tables, with colored waiters in attendance.  We had not been in these lower regions before, and the eyes of the children soon wandered from their plates to the berths, or sleeping-bunks, which lined the sides of the cabin.