never allowed him to leave the country for fear he would not be allowed
to come back-- He is a fat, half drunken looking man, with his eyes
full of tears half the time he plays. He looks just like a setter dog
and he is so terribly in earnest that when he fixes me with his eyes
and plays at me, the court ladies all get up and move their chairs out
of his way just as though he were a somnambulist--

I leave here Wednesday and reach Paris Friday MORNING the eleventh--
You must try to meet me at the Cafe de la Paix at half past nine-- Wait
in the corner room if you don't wish to sit outside and as soon as I
get washed I will join you for coffee. It will be fine to see you
again and to be done with jumping about from hotel to hotel and to be
able to read the signs and to know how to ask for food. Russian,
German and Hungarian have made French seem like my mother tongue--

DICK.

CHAPTER X

CAMPAIGNING IN CUBA AND GREECE

In December, 1896, Richard and Frederic Remington, the artist, were
commissioned by the New York Journal to visit Cuba which was then at
war with Spain. It was their intention to go from Key West in the
Vamoose, a very fast but frail steam-launch, and to make a landing at
some uninhabited point on the Cuban coast. After this their plans seem
to have been to trust to luck and the kindliness of the revolutionists.
After waiting for some time at Key West for favorable weather, they at
last started out on a dark night to make the crossing. A few hours
after the Vamoose had left Key West a heavy storm arose--apparently
much too violent for the slightly built launch. The crew struck and
the captain finally refused to go on to Cuba and put back to Key West.
Shortly after this Remington and my brother reached Havana by a more
simple and ostentatious route. This was my brother's first effort as a
war correspondent, and I presume it was this fact and the very
indefiniteness of the original plan that caused his mother and father
so much uneasiness. And, indeed, it did prove eventually a hazardous
exploit.

way to Key West.

December 19, 1896.

DEAR MOTHER:

I hope you won't be cross with me for going off and not letting you
know, but I thought it was better to do it that way as there was such
delay in our getting started. I am going to Cuba by way of Key West
with Frederic Remington and Michaelson, a correspondent who has been
there for six months. We are to be taken by the Vamoose the