When Channing turned in under the fruit-shed on the night of July 2d, there was but one press-boat remaining in the harbor.  That was the Consolidated Press boat, and Keating himself was on the wharf, signalling for his dingy.  Channing sprang to his feet and ran toward him, calling him by name.  The thought that he must for another day remain so near the march of great events and yet not see and feel them for himself, was intolerable.  He felt if it would pay his passage to the coast of Cuba, there was no sacrifice to which he would not stoop.  Keating watched him approach, but without sign of recognition.  His eyes were heavy and bloodshot.

“Keating,” Channing begged, as he halted, panting, “won’t you take me with you?  I’ll not be in the way, and I’ll stoke or wait on table, or anything you want, if you’ll only take me.”

Keating’s eyes opened and closed, sleepily.  He removed an unlit cigar from his mouth and shook the wet end of it at Channing, as though it were an accusing finger.

“I know your game,” he murmured, thickly.  “You haven’t got a boat and you want to steal a ride on mine—­for your paper.  You can’t do it, you see, you can’t do it.”

One of the crew of the dingy climbed up the gangway of the wharf and took Keating by the elbow.  He looked at him and then at Channing and winked.  He was apparently accustomed to this complication.  “I haven’t got a paper, Keating,” Channing argued, soothingly.  “Who have you got to help you?” he asked.  It came to him that there might be on the boat some Philip sober, to whom he could appeal from Philip drunk.

“I haven’t got anyone to help me,” Keating answered, with dignity.  “I don’t need anyone to help me.”  He placed his hand heavily and familiarly on the shoulder of the deck-hand.  “You see that man?” he asked.  “You see tha’ man, do you?  Well, tha’ man he’s too good for me an’ you.  Tha’ man—­used to be the best reporter in New York City, an’ he was too good to hustle for news, an’ now he’s—­now he can’t get a job—­see?  Nobody’ll have him, see?  He’s got to come and be a stoker.”

He stamped his foot with indignation.

“You come an’ be a stoker,” he commanded.  “How long you think I’m going to wait for a stoker?  You stoker, come on board and be a stoker.”

Channing smiled, guiltily, at his good fortune, He jumped into the bow of the dingy, and Keating fell heavily in the stern.

The captain of the press-boat helped Keating safely to a bunk in the cabin and received his instructions to proceed to Santiago Harbor.  Then he joined Channing.  “Mr. Keating is feeling bad to-night.  That bombardment off Morro,” he explained, tactfully, “was too exciting.  We always let him sleep going across, and when we get there he’s fresh as a daisy.  What’s this he tells me of your doing stoking?”

“I thought there might be another fight tomorrow, so I said I’d come as a stoker.”

The captain grinned.