her engines did not show Black Sea qualifications, and I stood off her owners, pending further investigation. Frantic wires failed to locate a yacht within reach which could be had for quick delivery. There was a neat little craft reported obtainable at the Piræus, but the owners could not be reached quickly enough, and she, too, passed into the list of rejected possibilities. Perhaps a dozen others, whose merits failed even to enlist consideration, were presented to my notice by the various shipping men in town. As soon as it became known that I was in the market for a boat and had the “spot” with which to close the deal, I had all the steamship brokers of the Levant at my heels to unload their old tubs on my innocence. When I went out they would get into the carriage and go, too. At lunch, two or three would be waiting, and when I came home to dinner an eager row would be sitting outside my room. It looked as though I should have to take the little _Rhone_ in spite of her sewing-machine engines, but finally I ran across a Greek, who rejoiced in the name of M. Pandermaly. He was the head of a fleet of salvage tugs and tow boats that lived in the waters of the Bosphorus and the Black Sea. We spent an hour together, weighing the respective units of his fleet. He showed me the picture of a boat then out of port. She had two funnels and lines that indicated both speed and sea-going qualities. “Where is she?” I asked, delighted with her appearance. He referred to five telegrams. At last he found the latest record. “Zungeldak, coaling,” he replied. I told him I knew as much about Zungeldak as I did about the contour of the North Pole, whereat he unearthed a great map of the Black Sea and showed a spot some hundred miles from Constantinople, on the coast of Asia Minor. A pier, a breakwater and about a score of houses constituted the town of really important coal deposits a few miles inland. “When can she be here?” I asked. “Two days if I wire,” and forthwith he sent the message. I figured that at least two days must elapse before I could get started anyway, even if the paper sanctioned my scheme, and I felt sure enough it would, to justify myself in taking the first steps. The next day, as I had anticipated, the reply came from Chicago giving me free hand. The die was cast. I called Morris and turned him loose to get a cook and provision the boat the moment she arrived in port, if on examination she proved fit. Beaming from ear to ear, he disappeared. Ten minutes later there was a tap at my door, and the magnificent Leo entered with the greatest deference and humility.