When it comes your turn, your manifest is produced
and you are asked a lot of questions. A combined interpreter and
registry clerk is at hand to assist. The interpreter pleases you greatly
by speaking in your own language, which he rightly guesses, and notes
whether your answers agree with those on the manifest.
[Sidenote: The Ticket System]
As you have the good fortune to be honest, and have sufficient money to
escape being halted as likely to become a public charge, you are
ticketed "O. K." with an "R" which means that you are bound for a
railroad station. You see a ticket "S. I." on the lame man, which means
that he is to go to a Board of Special Inquiry, with the chances of
being debarred, or sent back home. On another, as you pass, you notice a
ticket "L. P. C.," which signifies the dreaded decision, "liable to
become public charge"--a decision that means deportation.
[Sidenote: The Three Stairs of Separation]
All this time you have been guided. Now you are directed to a desk where
your railroad ticket-order is stamped; next to a banker's desk, where
your money is exchanged for American money; and finally you are motioned
to the right stairway of three, this leading to the railroad barge room.
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