"As I expected, the _Bulletin_ doesn't propose to get left on any unpleasantness in the Extreme East, nor even to take its chances in a syndicate. It wants real news, straight from the front, and, naturally, it hits upon Yours Truly to pick it up. I wrote to Rexdale just before leaving Boston, so it is probably no surprise to you that I have crossed the continent and am about to embark for Yokohama. Indeed I may make my bow to you on the quarter-deck of the _Osprey_ before you receive this letter! The papers are full of correspondence and abstracts of diplomatic papers from St. Petersburg and Tokio. The language of these communications between the State Departments of the two countries is bland and meek as the coo of a dove or the _baa_ of a lamb; but mark my words, my boy--there's going to be a war, and a big one. There _must_ be, to justify my going out to report it! Do you remember how a reporter in Havana in 1897 is said to have cabled to the home office of a certain 'yellow' journal not unknown to fame, 'No war here. What shall I do?' And the editor of the newspaper cabled back, 'Stay where you are, and send full reports. I'll provide war.' Well, our venerable and sagacious friend Marquis Ito, together with the amiable but distracted Ruler of all the Russias, will 'provide war' for me to write up, and that before many days. And the little Japs will strike first, see if they don't! Tell Rexdale, please, that I'm on my way. If anything good happens before I see you, 'make a note on,' and give it to me for a _Bulletin_ story. "Yours ever, "LARKIN." [_From Lieutenant Commander Rexdale to Hallie._] _Extract._ "CAVITE, P. I., December 2, 1903. " ... From Shanghai we were ordered to this port, where we have been lying for nearly a month, doing guard duty. Next Thursday we sail for Chefoo, the Chinese seaport not far from Wei-hai-wei, where Pechili Strait opens into the Yellow Sea. At that station we shall be quite near Korea and Port Arthur, and if there is any trouble we shall be spectators, though almost certainly not participants, so you need not worry when you see by the naval despatches at home that we are on the outskirts of the Debatable Land. It is hard, I've no doubt, for you to realise how the war-fever is growing, out here. I am told that the Japanese have been steadily preparing for this final trial of her strength with Russia for years past. You may be interested in the make-up of the Jap. army. Under the present law all males are subject to conscription at the age of twenty. There is no distinction of class, and there are no exemptions except for physical disabilities, or because the conscript is the sole support of indigent parents, a student in certain schools, or a member of certain branches of civil service.