It was in much this way that I gathered material for my Odessa cable. I had not time to collect a local staff, for I only remained thirty-six hours, but I made out fairly well on the collection of local information by turning Morris and three or four members of my crew loose for the day to talk with everyone possible. My dispatches to the consulate gave me quick and easy access to the official view, while a number of stranded war correspondents at the hotel regaled me with information, which they could not get out themselves on account of the telegraph and postal tie-up all over Russia. One rarely drops on a good situation without meeting a handful of old friends on similar business bent. In Odessa almost the first man I met ashore was Lionel James of the London _Times_, in my opinion the best of all the English cable correspondents. He had been in command of the _Times_ dispatch boat _Haimun_ in the Russo-Japanese war, and for months had been competing in the news zone against the dispatch boat I was operating for the Chicago _Daily News_. I first met him in Chefoo Harbor and again in Ping Yang Inlet in Korea. He joined the second army and scored a beat on the cable from Lioa Yang, which broke the Japanese securities in the London money market. I lost track of him and did not see him again until Red Sunday days in Petersburg. I was hurried up from a little investigation of a war scare in the Balkans and almost the first man I met in the hotel in Petersburg was James. For a few weeks I saw him daily, and again we parted. He had been on half a dozen assignments and I around the world when we met on the street in Odessa that cold December day.
By six that night I had my evidence all in and was aboard the _France_ ready for the run to the uncensored cable in Roumania.
_The France Does Her Best in the Run for the Uncensored Cable, Sticks in the Mud, but Gets Away and Arrives at Sulina Mouth with an Hour to Spare_
Every line of enterprise is subject to disappointment and the newspaper business is no exception. I arrived on board the _France_ with my mind picturing an eight-hour drive for the Roumanian cable, and my story in print in the afternoon edition of my paper the next day.