The next day at ten o’clock in the morning I went to my lawyer’s office. He had the charter drawn in due form and had brought in three of his shipping friends to talk matters over with me. They were a sad lot. Stiffly they sat against the wall, hands on knees, and regarded me much as an undertaker does a prospective customer. “Here is your charter,” my friend said, “but before you sign it, I would like to have you talk the situation over with my friends. They are shipping men of a great deal of experience in this part of the world, and what they will say ought to carry a great deal of weight with you. As a matter of fact, they think it unwise and very hazardous for you to attempt to get to Odessa in the month of December, especially in that small boat.” One of them came forward and delivered a most violent harangue in French with many gestures and grimaces, the sum total of which, roughly translated was, that the Black Sea in winter was Hell. This annoyed me a little and depressed me also. “No doubt it is disagreeable,” I said. “Probably I shall be as sick as a dog, but still, people don’t die of seasickness.” Another long discussion from the second gentleman. He had a cheerful tale of two steel steamers, one of 1500 tons, the other of 2500 tons, wrecked while trying to make the entrance to the Bosphorus within the past ten days. Seven men had escaped from one boat, while everybody had been drowned on the other. This account was not particularly encouraging, but I replied that I had no idea the Black Sea was so bad; however, as I had taken dispatches from the British government and had wired my office that I was sailing that day, I couldn’t see my way clear to back down. The fact of the case was, my keenness was a bit chilled. If a 2500-ton steamer had been swamped by the seas, I couldn’t see just where my little 250-ton tug boat was going to end up. The last man said little, but what he said was more depressing than the combined testimony of all the rest. He looked at me for a full minute with a pitying and incredulous expression on his face. He did not address me at all, but turned to my attorney and said in broken French: “Is it possible that this young gentleman will take this small boat—what you call the _France_, and essay to go to Odessa? He will do this in December? He will do this on the Black Sea?” My friend said: “Yes, he says he can’t back out now.” (Only he said it in French.) The man looked at me, smiled faintly, turned up the palms of his hands, shrugged his shoulders and said: “C’est impossible. Ze unfortunate young man. He will never come back.” He took his hat and went out.