"That's right," said Sam. "It's really a kindness to the people at home, for if they think it's true it makes them just as happy as if it were true, and I think it's positively cruel to worry them unnecessarily."
"To be sure," said Cleary. "And if it does get out, we'll throw all the blame on the Secretary of War and his embalmed beef. They say he's writing a book to show that a diet of mummies is the best for fighting men—and so the quarrels go on. By the way, I just stopped a piece of news that might have interested you. Do you know that you have suppressed the Declaration of Independence?"
"Nonsense. I haven't seen a copy of it in two years."
"Well, here's a despatch that I got away from the cable-office just in time. It would have gone in another ten minutes. Here it is."
Sam took the paper and read an account of the printing by a native committee of fifty thousand copies of the Declaration in Castalian, and its immediate suppression by Colonel Jinks, the censor.
"It's a downright lie," cried Sam. "I'll call my native secretary and inquire into this," and he rang his bell.
"See here, what does this mean?" he asked the clerk who hurried in.
The man thought a minute.
"I do not know the Declaration of Independence," he said, "but perhaps that paper I translated for you the other day had something to do with it. I have not a copy here."
"Were they burned?"