When the boys had changed their clothes they returned to the shop, and Sidney informed the merchant that he might have their old clothes which they had left lying in the other room. That seemed to satisfy the man, who was looking as though the boys had literally robbed him of everything he possessed. In a few minutes Captain Foster returned. “Everything is all right,” he announced, as they walked toward the docks, “and when I told your consul, Mr. Davis, what you boys had done, he said that if you needed money to get home with to call on him. I told him you wouldn’t need any money as far as I went.” “That’s fine of both of you,” said Sidney, “but I think we have enough money to pay our way home. I took your advice about paying for the clothes, so they didn’t cost us much, but I felt pretty cheap to beat the man down.” “You needn’t feel cheap,” said the captain; “if you paid half what he asked, you paid enough. You don’t look like the same young men.” And he regarded the boys with satisfaction. “I’m glad we look better,” said Sidney, “and we’ll feel better after we’ve had a good scrub.” “You can have a tub,” said the captain, “as soon as we get to the Princess Mary.” “There is one other matter,” said Sidney. “I would like to send a cable to our mother in New York. We couldn’t make the man at Tiflis understand, and she must be awfully anxious about us.” “I doubt if you can do that,” replied Captain Foster. “I don’t believe the Government will allow a message to be sent to a foreign country, but I’ll go around to the telegraph office with you and we’ll find out. You see, when there’s trouble, I don’t have to wire any owners, for I own the Princess Mary myself, so I don’t know whether the wires can be used now or not.” “What sort of a cargo do you carry, Captain Foster?” asked Sidney, as they walked along. “I load with crude oil for Venice.” “Isn’t that an awfully messy cargo?” asked Raymond. The captain laughed. “Oh, no; you wouldn’t know what I had aboard. There are tanks built into the ship, and the oil is pumped into them, and pumped out.” By that time they had arrived at the telegraph office and the captain interviewed the man in charge, who spoke no English. After a short conversation the captain turned to the boys, and announced, regretfully,-- “He says you can’t send any message of any kind out of the country.” “Poor mother, she will be sick with anxiety.” And Sidney’s eyes looked suspiciously moist. “She didn’t want us to come, Captain Foster. We had a bad time last winter getting away from the war in Mexico, and mother was sure something would happen to us this time, too. But that was before the war over here began.” “Well, you know the old saying, ‘No news is good news.’” “I’m afraid that mother wouldn’t agree to that. But I guess there’s nothing we can do.” “I fancy you can send a cable from Venice,” said the captain; “you know Italy is neutral, like the United States.”