the
police lines. No one at the bureau gave us the least encouragement as
to my getting in at the coronation. We were frantic, and I went back
to Breckenridge, our Minister, and wrote him a long letter explaining
what had happened, and that what I wrote would "live," that I was
advertised and had been advertised to write this story for months. I
dropped The Journal altogether, and begged him to represent me as a
literary light of the finest color. This he did in a very strong
letter to Daschoff, and I presented it this morning, but the Minister,
like Edison, said he would let me know when he could see me. Then I
wrote Breck a letter of thanks so elegant and complimentary that he
answered with another, saying if his first failed he would try again.
That means he is for me, and at the bureau they say whichever one he
insists on will get in, but they also say he is so good-natured that he
helps every one who comes. I told him this, and he has promised to
continue in my behalf as soon as we hear from Daschoff.

The second thing of importance is the getting the story, IF WE GET IT,
on the wire. That, I am happy to say, we are as assured of as I could
hope to be. I own the head of the Telegraph Bureau soul, body and
mind. He loves the ground T. and I spurn, and he sent out my first
cable today, one of interrogation merely, ahead of twelve others; he
has also given us the entree to a private door to his office, all the
other correspondents having to go to the press-rooms and undergo a sort
of press censorship, which entails on each man the cutting up of his
story into three parts, so as to give all a chance. I gave T. three
dictums to guide him; the first was that we did not want a fair
chance--we wanted an unfair advantage over every one else. Second, to
never accept a "No" or a "Yes" from a subordinate, but to take
everything from head-quarters. Third, to use every mouse, and not to
trust to the lions. He had practise on the train. When he told me we
would be in Moscow in ten hours, I would say, "Who told you that," and
back he would go to the Herr Station Director in a red gown, and return
to say that we would get there in twenty hours. By this time I will
match him against any newspaper correspondent on earth. He flatters,
lies, threatens and bribes with a skill and assurance that is simply
beautiful, and his languages and his manners pull me out of holes from
which I could never have risen. With it all h