“Oh, it's none of my business,” exclaimed Keating, impatiently. “I'm just telling you what they're saying. Now, there's the Cuban refugees, for instance. No one knows what they're doing here, or whether they're real Cubans or Spaniards.”
“Well, what of it?”
“Why, the way you go round with them and visit them, it's no wonder they say you're a spy.”
Channing stared incredulously, and then threw back his head and laughed with a shout of delight.
“They don't, do they?” he asked.
“Yes, they do, since you think it's so funny. If it hadn't been for us the day you went over to Guantanamo the marines would have had you arrested and court-martialed.”
Channing's face clouded with a quick frown, “Oh,” he exclaimed, in a hurt voice, “they couldn't have thought that.”
“Well, no,” Keating admitted grudgingly, “not after the fight, perhaps, but before that, when you were snooping around the camp like a Cuban after rations.” Channing recognized the picture with a laugh.
“I do,” he said, “I do. But you should have had me court-martialed and shot; it would have made a good story. 'Our reporter shot as a spy, his last words were—' what were my last words, Keating?”
Keating turned upon him with impatience, “But why do you do it?” he demanded. “Why don't you act like the rest of us? Why do you hang out with all those filibusters and runaway Cubans?”