right. We expect to be back here on Sunday but may stay out later.
Don't worry if you don't hear. It is grand to see the line of
battleships five miles out like dogs in a leash puffing and straining.
Thank God they'll let them slip any minute now. I don't know where
"Stenie" is. I am now going to take a nap while the smooth water lasts.

DICK.

--Flagship New York--

Off Havana,

April 26, 1898.

DEAR FAMILY:

I left Key West on the morning of the 24th in the Dolphin with the idea
of trying to get on board the flagship on the strength of Roosevelt's
letter. Stenie Bonsal got on just before she sailed, not as a
correspondent, but as a magazine-writer for McClure's, who have given
him a commission, and because he could act as interpreter. I left the
flagship the morning of the day I arrived. The captain of the Dolphin
apologized to his officers while we were at anchor in the harbor of Key
West, because his was a "cabin" and not a "gun" ship, and because he
had to deliver the mails at once on board the flagship and not turn out
of his course for anything, no matter how tempting a prize it might
appear to be. He then proceeded to chase every sail and column of
smoke on the horizon, so that the course was like a cat's cradle. We
first headed for a big steamer and sounded "general quarters." It was
fine to see the faces of the apprentices as they ran to get their
cutlasses and revolvers, their eyes open and their hair on end, with
the hope that they were to board a Spanish battleship. But at the
first gun she ran up an American flag, and on getting nearer we saw she
was a Mallory steamer. An hour later we chased another steamer, but
she was already a prize, with a prize crew on board. Then we had a
chase for three hours at night; after what we believed was the Panama,
but she ran away from us. We fired three shells after her, and she
still ran and got away. The next morning I went on board the New York
with Zogbaum, the artist. Admiral Sampson is a fine man; he impressed
me very much. He was very much bothered at the order forbidding
correspondents on the ship, but I talked like a father to him, and he
finally gave in, and was very nice about the way he did it. Since then
I have had the most interesting time and the most novel experience of
my life. We have been lying from three to ten miles off shore. We can
see Morro Castle and houses and palms plainly without a glass, and with
one we can disti