I only wish I were half as popular. I don't seem to belong,
do I? I guess it's my clothes. That English Colonel at Kingston
always scowls at me as though he'd like to put me in irons, and
whenever I meet our Consul he sees something very peculiar on the
horizon-line."
Keating frowned for a moment in silence, and then coughed,
consciously.
"Channing," he began, uncomfortably, "you ought to brace up."
"Brace up?" asked Channing.
"Well, it isn't fair to the rest of us," protested Keating, launching
into his grievance. "There's only a few of us here, and we--we think
you ought to see that and not give the crowd a bad name. All the
other correspondents have some regard for--for their position and for
the paper, but you loaf around here looking like an old tramp--like
any old beach-comber, and it queers the rest of us. Why, those
English artillerymen at the Club asked me about you, and when I told
them you were a New York correspondent they made all sorts of jokes
about American newspapers, and what could I say?"
Channing eyed the other man with keen delight.
"I see, by Jove! I'm sorry," he said. But the next moment he laughed,
and then apologized, remorsefully.
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