he two were incompatible.

CHAPTER XXV

MORE CENSORSHIP

I must confess that I stood in awe of these newspaper chaps, because I
knew my orders would incense them and if they took it into their heads
to roast me my life would be made miserable for a good many days to
come. But then in the army orders are made to be obeyed and I determined
not to show partiality to any of them. It was to be "a fair field and no
favor," so I sent word and asked them to meet me in the reading-room of
the hotel at two o'clock that afternoon. They came garbed in all sorts
of field uniform and I made a little speech telling what they might send
and what was interdicted; I remarked that the work was as irksome to me
as it was to them, but orders were orders and if they would live up to
the few _simple_ rules they would make my task much easier and save
themselves lots of trouble. Nothing absolutely was to be sent, that
would convey in any way an idea of the number of troops in Tampa, the
time of arrival or departure of any number of troops or ships, and
above all, not a word was to be sent out as to when the 5th Army Corps
was to sail. When I had finished one of the correspondents shook his
head in a deprecatory way and said:

"Well, captain, we thought Lieutenant Miley (my predecessor) was bad
enough but you can give him cards and spades and beat him out. You're
certainly a hummer from the word go, and I reckon we'd better go home."

He had my sympathy but that was all. Every correspondent had a war
department pass; these I examined and registered each man.

That night my fun commenced. At six P. M. they began to file stuff, and
armed with a big blue pencil I started to slash and when I finished,
some of their sheets looked like a miniature football field, while their
faces betokened blank amazement and intense disgust. Boiled down, the
first night's batch of copy consisted of a glowing description of the
new censor; this fiend whose weapon was a blue pencil--his glowing red
whiskers--his goggle eyes, and his Titian-colored hair. One of them
said:

"This afternoon the new censor stuck his head out of the window and the
glow was so great from his red whiskers and auburn locks that the fire
department was turned out. The latest report is that the censor was
unquenched," and so on. They couldn't send any news so they sent me.
Most of them were space writers and everything went. In many ways they
tried to evade the rules; by insinu