I knew that the commercial messages usually went promptly and were censored leniently, if at all. The operator also knew this fact. Also did a great light loom upon him as to complications which might arise, if the message were delayed. So without a word he went into the rear room, where ticked the instruments and my cable was started on its way. I learned weeks later, when I finally reached London, that the same messenger boy had brought both telegrams at the same time, the news dispatch being 287 words exactly. As the ground felt pretty solid and comfortable, after the _France_, and as the coffee was not nearly as bad as it looked, we sat in the office until the last word had gone, and then engaged the Turkish operator in pleasant converse. He invited us into a more pretentious, if even dirtier, apartment (which might be termed his lair), and we signified that we would be glad to pay the price of the drink of the country, if his influence could procure the same. More cigars circulated. Kind words passed freely. After the foundation for and that peculiar atmosphere particularly adapted to confidences had been firmly established, we began gently to encourage communication on those subjects which had been passing over the wire between the Caucasus and Constantinople. Probably outside of this extremely dirty gentleman in blouse and red trousers, who now seemed so well disposed, there was not a soul in town who had any information on any subject that would have been of the slightest interest outside of the port of Sinope. But our host, in his leisure moments (which I gathered comprised a fair share of the twenty-four hours), had noted what the wires were saying. Once he had become aroused in the subjects of interest along his line, he had made it a point to interview such seamen and others that touched the little town. He really knew a lot. When he had finished, we flattered ourselves that we knew as much as he did anyway as to the situation up in the Caucasus up to the past ten days, when, as our friend opined, the extension of the cable into the Caucasus had been suddenly cut. Anyway, communications thence had ceased abruptly. What we learned in brief was as follows: