Paul had discovered the lost
squadron of Spain in the harbor of Santiago. This last fact was the
one which sent Keating to Jamaica. Where he was sent was a matter of
indifference to Keating. He had worn the collar of the Consolidated
Press for so long a time that he was callous. A board meeting--a mine
disaster--an Indian uprising--it was all one to Keating. He collected
facts and his salary. He had no enthusiasms, he held no illusions.
The prestige of the mammoth syndicate he represented gained him an
audience where men who wrote for one paper only were repulsed on the
threshold. Senators, governors, the presidents of great trusts and
railroad systems, who fled from the reporter of a local paper as from
a leper, would send for Keating and dictate to him whatever it was
they wanted the people of the United States to believe, for when they
talked to Keating they talked to many millions of readers. Keating,
in turn, wrote out what they had said to him and transmitted it,
without color or bias, to the clearinghouse of the Consolidated
Press. His "stories," as all newspaper writings are called by men who
write them, were as picturesque reading as the quotations of a stock-
ticker.
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