Then the captain roared like a bull and said that he had been disturbed for nothing and that he didn’t know where to put the cotton, and that Fourgues might just as well have put it all ashore in Morocco, and that there wasn’t any sense in a boat that was neither full nor empty. They don’t mince their words in the Navy when they are talking to the Merchant Service. But Fourgues took it with a good grace because he wanted to get down to Orange and so he didn’t care. Moreover, he knew the owner could arrange it all with the authorities much better than he. No time was lost. The owner returned the next day and said that after consultation it had been agreed that the forward hold was to be emptied and loaded with fifteen hundred tons of special coal for torpedo-boats, but that the cotton should be left aft. After having supplied the Fleet, the _Pamir_ would go to England and unload her cotton at Liverpool in order that all might not be lost, and then get more coal at Cardiff and go again to the Fleet. “In this way my interests and those of the Government are equally protected. I sell only half my cotton and you get a load of coal at Cardiff at a cheap rate.” I should like very much to know how much he made them pay for our stroll to Morocco and the fifteen hundred bales of cotton that were left behind and the chartering of the _Pamir_. He can’t have lost much by it because he went away very sprightly after authorizing Fourgues to go to Orange. So I am here alone with ship, engine, loading, and everything. As for La Rochelle, it’s all up. The coal is due to-morrow at 4 a.m. Fourgues has just gone and I am in charge. There had to be a war for me to get a command! Well, perhaps I shall see you on your _Auvergne_ down there and we’ll swap yarns. So long, old man. CARDIFF, _November 15, 1914_. DEAR OLD MAN, Will you believe that I almost saw your battleship? It was just as we entered the Adriatic south of Leuca. At dawn I was taking the watch and I saw some smoke in the north--the kind that only warships kick up. Afterwards I saw the masts and smokestacks of three big ships which were going along line ahead. Fourgues thought it was a division of the big fellows bound for Malta to coal. He is pretty smart--for at Liverpool I received your letter dated in Malta five days after this encounter. I will speak of your letter later, but first let me tell you of affairs on the _Pamir_. I thought we should never be done loading coal at K----. Fifteen hundred tons isn’t very much. In England or America it wouldn’t have taken more than a morning. There you are made fast to a wharf, the waggons come, you capsize them into the hold, and when one train is empty another pulls up.