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you imagine what would happen if this was done in America? So they closed the bridge, and we went across.

Our next stop was Kharkov. By this time we had discovered that you could buy black market rubles. The official rate of the ruble at that time was 52 cents, but you could buy them in the streets for two cents and sometimes even a cent apiece, because the people wanted foreign money so badly. There were stores in every Russian town where they only accepted foreign money. You could buy things that were not available to the Russian people unless they had foreign money--you know, tobacco and peaches and oranges--luxuries. So to get the money they would sell the rubles for a cent or two apiece. But we had paid for everything in advance, so the rubles we got we didn't know what to do with.

That's when I made the discovery that you could send cables at the regular rate. Well, Ross owed each of us $1600. So every day we would send him about a three-page cable, saying, “You miserable fourflusher, how about paying your just debts?" He would be getting these cables from the craziest towns. He called up my father to report, “Your son has gone crazy. He's sending me three-page cables. They must be costing him $50 apiece.” Well, they were averaging us about 60 cents because we had all those black market rubles.

Mina by this time was reasonably fond of me and terrified that I was going to get arrested for trafficking in these black market rubles. I said, “What does the government care? We're spending extra American money here.” But she was