“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.” Keating shrugged his shoulders, tolerantly. “Oh, I see that side of it,” he assented. “I see all there is in it for YOU, the sort of stuff you write, Sunday-special stuff, but there's no NEWS in it. I'm not paid to write mail-letters, and I'm not down here to interview palm-trees either.” “Why, you old fraud!” laughed Channing. “You know you're having the time of your life here. You're the pet of Kingston society--you know you are. 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. “Indeed, I beg your pardon,” he begged, “but it struck me as a sort of--I had no idea you fellows were such swells--I knew I was a social outcast, but I didn't know my being a social outcast was hurting anyone else. Tell me some more.” “Well, that's all,” said Keating, suspiciously. “The fellows asked me to speak to you about it and to tell you to take a brace. Now, for instance, we have a sort of mess-table at the hotels and we'd like to ask you to belong, but--well--you see how it is--we have the officers to lunch whenever they're on shore, and you're so disreputable”--Keating scowled at Channing, and concluded, impotently, “Why don't you get yourself some decent clothes and--and a new hat?” Channing removed his hat to his knee and stroked it with affectionate pity. “It is a shocking bad hat,” he said. “Well, go on.”