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the Communist revolution had not quite taken hold of Southern Russia yet. Well, Mina was a charmer. We were very sorry to say goodbye to her. Both Getzloe and Harold were married, remember--I was not.

We were to sail late that night on a Black Sea steamer, which would take us to Sevastpol (where the Crimean War had its great fight) and Yalta, which at that time we had never heard of but where the great conference of the Big Three was held later on, and all the way to Batum, which is way down at the eastern end of the Black Sea. It was a four-day trip on this boat. Before we did this, we had a conference with the manager of Intourist in Odessa to determine the remainder of our tour: Tiflis, Rostov, Moscow, Leningrad.

The Intourist manager explained that we were booked first class all the way through. And since we were going to be partial guests of the Russian government, we were entitled not only to a local guide everywhere but a general guide to watch over us en route--to take care of our baggage and get us on the trains and automobiles. Since we didn't speak a word of Russian, this was quite necessary. The manager said he had just the person to take us around. He had an old-fashioned bell on his desk--the kind where you bang your hand down, you know. I haven't seen one for many years. In fact, I don't think I've seen one since. This was a great big one. And out of the woodwork came the ugliest woman imaginable. She looked like the black witch in “The Wizard of Oz.” I took one look at her and said, “You mean she's going to be with us for