Читать книгу The Cable Game. The Adventures of an American Press-Boat in Turkish Waters During the Russian Revolution онлайн

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A few hours sufficed to pack all my effects which, when mobilized, comprised fourteen pieces of impedimenta. The theory is that a war correspondent must move from place to place prepared at any moment to adjust himself to any situation, from a war assignment, revolution or riot, down to the meeting socially of a foreign ambassador. Hence these fourteen pieces, which sound excessive, contained everything from a frock coat and a high hat down to a kitchen camp stove. Saddles, tents, campaign outfits of various kinds take up much room, but are really worth the bother, for when one wants them, that want is a demand that money often cannot meet. One’s own saddle on a hurry call that may mean days of riding is in itself an asset beyond comparison. It may mean all the difference between success and failure. One knows just what one can do with an outfit tried and true, and hence it is worth while lugging it about the world, even if it is used but once or twice.

A few days later saw me and my grinning Ethiopian disembarked on the Bund at Shanghai. The place looked familiar enough, for I had spent weeks there, and this was my fifth visit. Every time I left I felt that I had made a distinct addition to my information as to the wickedness of the world, and every time the desire rested heavily on my mind to write a story about this cosmopolitan mushroom on the China coast, but each time I held my hand as I realized that fate might well bring me back to it, but now that Shanghai is some ten thousand miles away, and the chances of seeing the people who might read such a story remote, I feel that I cannot pass it over without a few comments.