Richard Harding Davis

“ The Colonel vaulted the counter and ran to meet him.
“This looks like news from the front now,” he cried.
The man on the mule was from civil life. His eyes bulged from their sockets and his face was purple. The sweat ran over it and glistened on the cords of his thick neck.
“They're driving us back!” he shrieked. “Chaffee's killed, an' Roosevelt's killed, an' the whole army's beaten!” He waved his arms wildly toward the glaring, inscrutable mountains. The volunteers and stevedores and Cubans heard him, open-mouthed and with panic-stricken eyes. ”

“ Consequently, he was dear to the heart of the Consolidated Press, and, as a “safe” man, was sent to the beautiful harbor of Santiago—to a spot where there were war-ships cleared for action, Cubans in ambush, naked marines fighting for a foothold at Guantanamo, palm-trees and coral-reefs—in order that he might look for “facts.”
There was not a newspaper man left at Key West who did not writhe with envy and anger when he heard of it. When the wire was closed for the night, and they had gathered at Josh Kerry's, Keating was the storm-centre of their indignation. ”

“ As long as Sampson blockaded Havana and the army beat time back of the Tampa Bay Hotel, the central office for news was at Key West, but when Cervera slipped into Santiago Harbor and Sampson stationed his battle-ships at its mouth, Key West lost her only excuse for existence, and the press-boats burled their bows in the waters of the Florida Straits and raced for the cable-station at Port Antonio. ”

“ Keating admitted grudgingly, “not after the fight, perhaps, but before that, when you were snooping around the camp like a Cuban after rations.” Channing recognized the picture with a laugh.
“I do,” he said, “I do. But you should have had me court-martialed and shot; it would have made a good story. 'Our reporter shot as a spy, his last words were—' what were my last words, Keating?”
Keating turned upon him with impatience, “But why do you do it?” he demanded. “Why don't you act like the rest of us? Why do you hang out with all those filibusters and runaway Cubans?” ”

“ On the day they did this Channing had the good fortune to be in Siboney. The World man had carried him there and asked him to wait around the waterfront while he went up to the real front, thirteen miles inland. Channing's duty was to signal the press-boat when the first despatch-rider rode in with word that the battle was on. The World man would have liked to ask Channing to act as his despatch-rider, but he did not do so, because the despatch-riders were either Jamaica negroes or newsboys from Park Row—and he remembered that Keating had asked Channing to be his stoker. ”

“ And I liked the way they all talk about Sampson, and the way the ships move over the stations like parts of one machine, just as he had told them to do.
“Scudder introduced me to him, and he listened while we did the talking, but it was easy to see who was the man in the Conning Tower. Keating—my boy!” Channing cried, sitting upright in his enthusiasm, “he's put a combination-lock on that harbor that can't be picked—and it'll work whether Sampson's asleep in his berth, or fifteen miles away, or killed on the bridge. He doesn't have to worry, he knows his trap will work—he ought to, he set it.” ”

“ 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.” ”

“ I never see Keating in here with the rest of the boys.”
“You wouldn't,” said Norris. “He only comes in here by himself, and he drinks by himself. He's one of those confidential drunkards, You give some men whiskey, and it's like throwing kerosene on a fire, isn't it? It makes them wave their arms about and talk loud and break things, but you give it to another man and it's like throwing kerosene on a cork mat. It just soaks in. ”

“ I've worked twelve hours a day. Keating even has worked eighteen hours a day—all his life—but we never wrote 'The Passing of the Highbinders,' nor the 'Ships that Never Came Home,' nor 'Tales of the Tenderloin,' and we never will. I'm a better news-gatherer than Charlie, I can collect facts and I can put them together well enough, too, so that if a man starts to read my story he'll probably follow it to the bottom of the column, and he may turn over the page, too. ”

“ It seems so presumptuous in a young republic, as though we were strutting around, singing, 'I'm getting a big boy now.' I felt like saying, 'Oh, come off, and stop playing you're a world power, and get back into your red sash and knickerbockers, or you'll get spanked!' It seems as though we must be such a lot of amateurs. ”

“ He was sitting on the stringer of the pier-head one morning, waiting for a press-boat from the “front,” when the Three Friends ran in and lowered her dingy, and the World manager came ashore, clasping a precious bundle of closely written cable-forms. Channing scrambled to his feet and hailed him.
“Have you heard from the chief about me yet?” he asked. The World man frowned and stammered, and then, taking Channing by the arm, hurried with him toward the cable-office.
“Charlie, I think they're crazy up there,” he began, “they think they know it all. ”

“ WHEN the war-ships of a navy lie cleared for action outside a harbor, and the war-ships of the country with which they are at war lie cleared for action inside the harbor, there is likely to be trouble. Trouble between war-ships is news, and wherever there is news there is always a representative of the Consolidated Press. ”

“ He had been buffeted and beaten by a storm of all the great emotions; pride of race and country, pity for the dead, agony for the dying, who clung to blistering armor-plates, or sank to suffocation in the sea; the lust of the hunter, when the hunted thing is a fellow-man ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ He will first fire a shot across her bows, and then sink her!” He sprang upright and stood for a moment, sustained by the false strength of the fever. “To Panama, you hear me!” he shouted. He beat the floor with his foot. “Faster, faster, faster,” he cried. “We've got a great story! We want a clear wire, we want the wire clear from Panama to City Hall. It's the greatest story ever written—full of facts, facts, facts, facts for the Consolidated Press—and Keating wrote it. I tell you, Keating wrote it. I saw him write it. I was a stoker on the same ship.” ”

“ Then the war broke out and he's been trying to get back to Key West, and now, of course, he'll make for Kingston. He cabled me yesterday, at my expense, to try and get him a job on our paper. If the war hadn't come on he had a plan to beat his way around the world. And he'd have done it, too. I never saw a man who wouldn't help Charlie along, or lend him a dollar.” He glanced at the faces about him and winked at the Boston man. “They all of them look guilty, don't they?” he said.
“Charlie Channing,” murmured the baseball reporter, gently, as though he were pronouncing the name of a girl. ”

“ That's what Keating is. He's a sort of a cork mat.”
“I shouldn't think the C. P. would stand for that,” said the Boston man.
“It wouldn't, if it ever interfered with his work, but he's never fallen down on a story yet. And the sort of stuff he writes is machine-made; a man can write C. P. stuff in his sleep.”
One of the World men looked up and laughed.
“I wonder if he'll run across Channing out there,” he said. The men at the table smiled, a kindly, indulgent smile. The name seemed to act upon their indignation as a shower upon the close air of a summer-day. “That's so,” said Norris. ”

“ Have you tried the Consolidated Press yet?”
Channing smiled grimly at the recollection.
“Yes, I tried it first.”
“It would be throwing pearls to swine to have you write for them, I know, but they're using so many men now. I should think you could get on their boat.”
“No, I saw Keating,” Channing explained. “He said I could come along as a stoker, and I guess I'll take him up, it seems——”
“Keating said—what?” exclaimed the World man. “Keating? Why, he stands to lose his own job, if he isn't careful. If it wasn't that he's just married, the C. P. boys would have reported him a dozen times.” ”

“ His old complaint.”
“Oh, that,” said Channing. “My old complaint?” he added.
“Well, yes, but Keating hasn't been sober for two weeks, and he'd have fallen down on the Guasimas story if those men hadn't pulled him through. They had to, because they're in the syndicate. He ought to go shoot himself; he's only been married three months and he's handling the biggest piece of news the country's had in thirty years, and he can't talk straight. There's a time for everything, I say,” growled the World man.
“It takes it out of a man, this boat-work,” Channing ventured, in extenuation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And he got it through by Panama a day ahead of all the other stories! And nobody read them, anyway. Why, Captain Mahan said it was 'naval history,' and the Evening Post had an editorial on it, and said it was 'the only piece of literature the war has produced.' We never thought Keating had it in him, did you? The Consolidated Press people felt so good over it that they've promised, when he comes back from Paris, they'll make him their Washington correspondent. He's their 'star' reporter now. It just shows you that the occasion produces the man. ”

“ He raised his glass. “Here's to Charlie Channing,” he repeated. Norris set down his empty glass and showed it to the Boston man.
“That's his only enemy,” he said. “Write! Heavens, how that man can write, and he'd almost rather do anything else. There isn't a paper in New York that wasn't glad to get him, but they couldn't keep him a week. ”

“ He wrote me last month from Port-au-Prince that he was moving on to Jamaica. He wrote me from that club there at the end of the wharf. He said he was at that moment introducing the President to a new cocktail, and as he had no money to pay his passage to Kingston he was trying to persuade him to send him on there as his Haitian Consul. ”