“Why, sir,” he said, “I regard this, sir, as one of the most promising situations in the world, sir, for people in our line of business, sir. Here is Russia all going to the devil, sir. Odessa, sir, is, no doubt, razed to the ground. Yes, sir, I believe it, reduced to ashes. Why, a day in Odessa, and what a story. I repeat, sir, what a story! And what is our position? Not a boat going there, not a train to Russia, not a cable available. I am discouraged, sir; yes, sir, I admit it, discouraged!” And he turned back to gaze again over the strip of water that lay below. Morris regarded my business as his always. It was never what I was going to do, but always what “we” were doing. [Illustration: WITH CLANKING CHAINS AND CREAKING LIMBERS BATTERIES ARE GOING TO THE FRONT] [Illustration: IN EIGHTEEN MONTHS’ ASSOCIATION WITH THE ARMY WE HAVE NOT SEEN SUCH ACTIVITY] “It does look bad,” I admitted. On the table stood my typewriter and beside it, two piles of stationery, the one of cable blanks and the other for letter use. The moment we landed these were the first things Morris unpacked. As soon as we entered a room in a new hotel, he would ring for the bell boy and freeze him with a look, as he called for cable blanks. I considered the situation for a moment. Obviously there was nothing definite to be learned here. The rail to Russia was no longer to be figured on. The wires were not working. No news was coming out. The first thing to do was to get on the spot, and the second to provide myself with the means of getting my stories out. The boats had stopped running. Clearly enough there was but one thing to do. These thoughts ran through my mind, and I sat down and wrote a cable to Chicago—“Nothing definite obtainable here. Rumors indicate excellently. If you consider situation warrants, propose charter steamer and cover all points interest Black Sea, answer.” I handed it to Morris. From the depths of gloom to the radiancy of bliss his spirits leaped in an instant. He grinned from ear to ear. “Fine business! Yes, sir, I call that fine business,” and he was off down the hall like a shot out of a gun. I looked out the window, and a moment later saw him dash off in a two-horse carriage for the cable office. Heaven only knows what he told Leo, the performer of everything in that hotel. Anyway Leo had mounted on the box with the driver, some A D C to his own august person, and with a gallop the horses plunged through the narrow streets, while the assistant on the box called out to clear the way. While Morris was sending my first dispatch, I was embodying in a three-hundred-word news cable the estimate of the general situation in the Black Sea, as seen from the haze of Constantinople ignorance and aloofness from the outer world. This message was the boiling down of my interviews with the various consuls and ambassadors and the information which Morris had gotten from his tours along the water front among the captains and officers of incoming steamers.