He took the message
and in five minutes it was reposing gently in my desk. I then quickly
sent out a telegram to all my censors taking away the correspondent's
privileges until further orders.
That night full of innocence--and beer--he walked into the Tampa city
office and handed Censor Fellers a message for his paper, just as a
sort of a bluff. Fellers grinned at him quietly said:
"Sorry, Mr. J--, but Captain B--has just suspended you from use of the
telegraph until further orders."
In a very few minutes Mr. J--appeared at my office, blustering like a
Kansas cyclone, and demanded to know why I had dared to treat him thus?
I simply picked up his copy and showed it to him, saying:
"This is your handwriting, I believe, Mr. J--."
The props dropped out from under him and he said:
"Well, by thunder, you censor mail, telegraph and express; I reckon if I
attempted to send anything by carrier pigeon you'd catch it and put that
d--d old 'rejected' stamp on it."
"No," I replied, "but I might possibly use it on a mule."
In spite of his pleadings and promises he was hung up for ten days.
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