‘We’ve struck an iceberg—a big one—but there’s no danger. An officer told me so!’ The Collyers were travelling second class, on their way from Britain to a fruit farm just purchased in Fayette Valley, Idaho. They were novices on the Atlantic, and perhaps the news would have roused Mrs Collyer, but the dinner that night had been too rich. So she just asked her husband if anybody seemed frightened, and when he said no, she lay back again in her bunk.

John Jacob Astor seemed equally unperturbed. Returning to his suite after going up to investigate, he explained to Mrs Astor that the ship had struck ice, but it didn’t look serious. He was very calm and Mrs Astor wasn’t a bit alarmed.

‘What do they say is the trouble?’ asked William T. Stead, a leading British spiritualist, reformer, evangelist, and editor, all rolled into one. A professional individualist, he seemed almost to have planned his arrival on deck later than the others.

‘Icebergs,’ briefly explained Frank Millet, the distinguished American painter.

‘Well,’ Stead shrugged, ‘I guess it’s nothing serious; I’m going back to my cabin to read.’

Mr and Mrs Dickinson Bishop of Dowagiac, Michigan, had the same reaction. When a deck steward assured them, ‘We have only struck a little piece of ice and passed it,’ the Bishops returned to their stateroom and undressed again. Mr Bishop picked up a book and started to read, but soon he was interrupted by a knock on the door. It was Mr Albert A. Stewart, an ebullient old gentleman who had a large interest in the Barnum and Bailey Circus: ‘Come on out and amuse yourself!’

Others had the same idea. First-class passenger Peter Daly heard one young lady tell another, ‘Oh, come and let’s see the berg—we have never seen one before.’

And in the second-class smoking-room somebody facetiously asked whether he could get some ice from the berg for his highball.