My first trip to Europe, mentioned in the last chapter, was made with my wife, when the oldest transatlantic line was still the fashionable one. The passenger on a Cunarder felt himself amply compensated for poor attendance, coarse food, and bad coffee by learning from the officers on the promenade deck how far the ships of their line were superior to all others in strength of hull, ability of captain, and discipline of crew. Things have changed on both sides since then. Although the Cunard line has completed its half century without having lost a passenger, other lines are also carefully navigated, and the Cunard passenger, so far as I know, fares as well as any other. Captain McMickan was as perfect a type of the old-fashioned captain of the best class as I ever saw. His face looked as if the gentlest zephyr that had ever fanned it was an Atlantic hurricane, and yet beamed with Hibernian good humor and friendliness. He read prayers so well on Sunday that a passenger assured him he was born to be a bishop. One day a ship of the North German Lloyd line was seen in the offing slowly gaining on us. A passenger called the captain's attention to the fact that we were being left behind.