All of this I told my nervous little Greek engineer and then pointed out that now he as well as I was a correspondent, and not only he, but every man on the boat was one. “I can do nothing alone,” I told him. “It is only by your co-operation that we can make this expedition a success, yours and every other member of this crew,” and then I explained to him the value of time. How that minutes were worth dollars and days thousands, and that an hour saved might mean the difference between success and failure. “You have seen the situation in Odessa,” I pointed out to him. “You know as well as I do that there are hundreds of foreigners, your countrymen and mine included, whose lives and property are insecure every day that this reign of terror lasts. They are praying for relief from their home governments and there” (I pointed to my typewriter cable blanks on the table) “is the story of their plight, and their prayer for help. Ten hours after we reach Sulina, that story will be in print, and in 24 it will have been read by every foreign office in the world, and who can tell what will be the result? Next week this time there may be a fleet of warships plowing these waters at full speed to bring protection to every port in southern Russia. Have you ever been in peril and without protection? Have you ever longed and prayed for the sight of a battleship or cruiser flying a friendly flag? Have you watched the harbor mouth day in and day out for the smudge of smoke which may mean the coming of succor? Can you realize what bluejackets, machine guns and friends mean to the people in Odessa? Realize it and you know what the value of minutes and, much more, hours may mean. Perhaps I understand it more than you possibly can, for training on an American paper makes a man consider time more than anything on earth. You people aboard don’t know how the newspapers in America and in England, too, spend thousands to save minutes. Go to a big meeting in my country, and sit through two hours of speeches. When you leave the hall, a newsboy will hand you a paper with the ink still wet, with a complete account of the first hour and a half of what has gone on within.” The engineer was visibly impressed. “I can’t understand,” he said, “how your paper can spend so much money for a month of news, much less for one story.”