“If this isn’t exciting, I don’t know what is,” Betty reflected, following the senator down the steps to the lower deck and past the guard,--who looked very threatening at first, but bowed profoundly when he saw the senator’s card,--into the network of low-ceiled passages beyond the tiny square of open deck. It was dirty, or at least it was unpleasantly smelly. But by the time Betty had satisfied her curiosity and would much rather have turned and gone straight back to her comfortable steamer chair, the senator had forgotten all about her, and surrounded by a group of eager men was deep in his investigation.