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.
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