But here I cut him off, having finished my dinner and a cigar besides, and sent him to the galley to get his own meal, and more important, to give me an opportunity to write my story. During the delay of the day, I had examined every member of the crew that had been ashore, to gather any additional data for my cable. This with the mass of material picked up the day before, gave me enough for a column message, which I proceeded to rap out on my machine. People generally seem to think that newspaper stories must be in cipher, for few of the uninitiated realize that a thousand dollars on cable toll for a single dispatch is nothing unusual. The writing of a cable differs only from a written article in that one cuts local color and descriptive matter a bit in favor of facts. By force of habit, a cable arranges itself in one’s mind unconsciously and can be written as fast as one can work a machine. Then there only remains to read over the copy and blue pencil all superfluous “thes,” “ands,” adjectives, and everything in fact that the foreign editor in the office can supply by the study of the context. Thus a 2000 word story will “skeletonize” to perhaps 1200 and be re-expanded in the office to 2500. The office files contain vast stores of information. If a name or place is mentioned, it is looked up and its significance or location incorporated into the cable as printed. The result is a detailed story and an accurate one as far as the editorial half is concerned. It took me a half hour to write my story and another fifteen minutes to “skeletonize” and re-copy it ready for the telegraph office. It came to 895 words.