“They have been very kind to me,” said Channing, soberly.  “They are a very courteous race, and they have ideas of hospitality which make the average New Yorker look like a dog hiding a bone.”

“Oh, I suppose you mean that for us,” demanded Keating.  “That’s a slap at me, eh?”

Channing gave a sigh and threw himself back against the trunk of the palm, with his hands clasped behind his head.

“Oh, I wasn’t thinking of you at all, Keating,” he said.  “I don’t consider you in the least.”  He stretched himself and yawned wearily.  “I’ve got troubles of my own.”  He sat up suddenly and adjusted the objectionable hat to his head.

“Why don’t you wire the C. P.,” he asked, briskly, “and see if they don’t want an extra man?  It won’t cost you anything to wire, and I need the job, and I haven’t the money to cable.”

“The Consolidated Press,” began Keating, jealously.  “Why—­well, you know what the Consolidated Press is?  They don’t want descriptive writers—­and I’ve got all the men I need.”

Keating rose and stood hesitating in some embarrassment.  “I’ll tell you what I could do, Channing,” he said, “I could take you on as a stoker, or steward, say.  They’re always deserting and mutinying; I have to carry a gun on me to make them mind.  How would you like that?  Forty dollars a month, and eat with the crew?”

For a moment Channing stood in silence, smoothing the sand with the sole of his shoe.  When he raised his head his face was flushing.

“Oh, thank you,” he said.  “I think I’ll keep on trying for a paper—­ I’ll try a little longer.  I want to see something of this war, of course, and if I’m not too lazy I’d like to write something about it, but—­well—­I’m much obliged to you, anyway.”

“Of course, if it were my money, I’d take you on at once,” said Keating, hurriedly.

Channing smiled and nodded.  “You’re very kind,” he answered.  “Well, good-by.”

A half-hour later, in the smoking-room of the hotel, Keating addressed himself to a group of correspondents.

“There is no doing anything with that man Channing,” he said, in a tone of offended pride.  “I offered him a good job and he wouldn’t take it.  Because he got a story in the International Magazine, he’s stuck on himself, and he won’t hustle for news—­he wants to write pipe-dreams.  What the public wants just now is news.”

“That’s it,” said one of the group, “and we must give it to them—­ even if we have to fake it.”

Great events followed each other with great rapidity.  The army ceased beating time, shook itself together, adjusted its armor and moved, and, to the delight of the flotilla of press-boats at Port Antonio, moved, not as it had at first intended, to the north coast of Cuba, but to Santiago, where its transports were within reach of their megaphones.

“Why, everything’s coming our way now!” exclaimed the World manager in ecstasy.  “We’ve got the transports to starboard at Siboney, and the war-ships to port at Santiago, and all we’ll need to do is to sit on the deck with a field-glass, and take down the news with both hands.”