"You know my home, sir, is in a little town in the centre of Ohio. I don't suppose our country papers print your articles, but I know my people and friends, and I guess all the town, would be glad to know how well I did and would like to see my picture in the paper, sir." Well, you feel sorry that you have to tell him that you are not allowed to give results of the target shooting or to mention names or to say whether any ship or any gun did well or badly. But when you tell him that in good time all his people and friends and neighbors are sure to find out about it he smiles with great pride and says: "Thank you, sir. I guess we've got 'em all skinned good and proper." But how is it all done? Why don't you give details? perhaps you, gentle reader, as the old-time books used to say, are asking. Well, this article if it interests you at all will interest you because of what it will not say rather than because of what it will say. Listen to the pledge, which every correspondent bound himself to keep when he came on this cruise: "To refrain from giving out for publication, either while with the fleet or later, any military information that might be of value to a possible enemy, such as detailed descriptions of mechanism or of methods of drills, of handling fire control (that means the way of controlling the fire of the guns), tactical manoeuvres, scores at target practice, etc." And this pledge was supplemented on arrival in Magdalena Bay by further instructions from the Commander-in-Chief, which said: "No statement of scores shall be forwarded or whether ships do well or badly. "No comments on the workings of the battery or its appurtenances, including the fire control, shall be forwarded." Now, what can a conscientious correspondent do when, for the good of the service and the welfare of the country, he's all tied up like that? Well, there are lots of things that can be told about target shooting, things that every naval man knows about and are no secret and that the ordinary person doesn't know about. There's no inhibition on writing about noise, and the flare of guns and the puffs of smoke, and the geysers that shoot up out of the water as the shots ricochet far out to the horizon. Oh, yes, the old adage is still true that there are a good many ways to skin a cat.