Richard Harding Davis

“ For three more dreary hours we took turns at the oars or dozed at the bottom of the boat while we continued aimlessly to drift upon the face of the waters. It was now five o’clock, and the fog had so far lightened that we could see each other and a stretch of open water. At intervals the fog-horns of vessels passing us, but hidden from us, tormented Aldrich to a state of extreme exasperation. ”

“ That mob-swept deck was no place for her. I was happy that, on her account, I had not waited for a possible rescue. In the yawl she was safe. The water was smooth, and the Connecticut shore was, I judged, not more than three miles distant. In an hour, unless the fog confused us, I felt sure the lovely lady would again walk safely upon dry land. Selfishly, on Kinney’s account and my own, I was delighted to find myself free of the steamer, and from any chance of her landing us where police waited with open arms. ”

“ And if it leads him to believe innocent people are criminals, it also leads him to believe that every woman in the Subway to whom he gives his seat is a great lady, a leader of society on her way to work in the slums.
“Joe!” I protested. “Those men aren’t criminals. I talked to that Irishman, and he hasn’t sense enough to be a criminal.”
“The railroads are watched,” repeated Kinney. “Do honest men care a darn whether the railroad is watched or not? Do you care? Do I care? And did you notice how angry the American got when he found Stumps talking with you?” ”

“ The avenging angel in the person of Aldrich was still near us, so near that I could hear the water dripping from his clothes, but his power to harm was gone. I was congratulating myself on this when suddenly he undeceived me. Apparently he had been considering his position toward Kinney and myself, and, having arrived at a conclusion, was anxious to announce it.
“I wish to repeat,” he exclaimed suddenly, “that I’m under obligations to nobody. Just because my friends,” he went on defiantly, “choose to trust themselves with persons who ought to be in jail, I can’t desert them. ”

“ Kinney’s eyes flashed with excitement.
“Think of the newspapers,” he cried; “they’ll be full of it!” Already in imagination he saw the headlines. “A Clever Haul!” he quoted. “Noted band of crooks elude New York police, but are captured by Forbes Kinney.” He sighed contentedly. “And they’ll probably print my picture, too,” he added.
I knew I should be angry with him, but instead I could only feel sorry. I have known Kinney for a year, and I have learned that his “make-believe” is always innocent. ”

“ I wanted to beat about the harbor in a catboat, and feel the tug and pull of the tiller. Kinney protested that that was no way to spend a vacation or to invite adventure. His face was set against Fairport. The conversation of clam-diggers, he said, did not appeal to him; and he complained that at Fairport our only chance of adventure would be my capsizing the catboat or robbing a lobster-pot. He insisted we should go to the mountains, where we would meet what he always calls “our best people.” ”

“ I laughed with apparent unconcern, and turned to the purser.
“Oh, that’s it, is it?” I cried. “I might have known it was Kinney; he’s always playing practical jokes on me.” I turned to Aldrich. “My friend has been playing a joke on you, too,” I said. “He didn’t know who you were, but he saw you were an Anglomaniac, and he’s been having fun with you!”
“Has he?” roared Aldrich. He reached down into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. “This,” he cried, shaking it at me, “is a copy of a wireless that I’ve just sent to the chief of police at New Bedford.” ”

“ Sometimes he has followed a fire-engine and helped people from a fire-escape, or he has pulled the shield off a policeman, or at the bar of the Hotel Knickerbocker has made friends with a stranger, who turns out to be no less than a nobleman or an actor. And women, especially beautiful women, are always pursuing Kinney in taxicabs and calling upon him for assistance. Just to look at Kinney, without knowing how clever he is at getting people out of their difficulties, he does not appear to be a man to whom you would turn in time of trouble. ”

“ I had not noticed any eagerness on the part of the young man to talk to Kinney or to listen to him, but I did not sit down.
“I should not be surprised a bit,” said Kinney, “if that young man is no end of a swell. He is a Harvard man, and his manner was most polite. That,” explained Kinney, “is one way you can always tell a real swell. They’re not high and mighty with you. Their social position is so secure that they can do as they like. ”

“ I had never seen a British peer, with or without his disguise, and I admit I was interested.
“Why are the girls in this house,” demanded Kinney, “always running to your room to borrow matches? Because they admire your clothes? If they’re crazy about clothes, why don’t they come to me for matches?”
“You are always out at night,” I said.
“You know that’s not the answer,” he protested. “Why do the type-writer girls at the office always go to you to sharpen their pencils and tell them how to spell the hard words? Why do the girls in the lunch-rooms serve you first? ”

“ I pointed out, “is to get away from this awful city. The second thing is to get away cheaply. Let us write down the names of the summer resorts to which we can travel by rail or by boat for two dollars and put them in a hat. The name of the place we draw will be the one for which we start Saturday afternoon. The idea,” I urged, “is in itself full of adventure.”
Kinney agreed, but reluctantly. What chiefly disturbed him was the thought that the places near New York to which one could travel for so little money were not likely to be fashionable. ”

“ He exclaimed aloud with pity and impatience.
“No wonder,” he cried, “you never have adventures. Why, it’s plain as print. They are criminals escaping. The Englishman certainly is escaping.”
I was concerned only for the lovely lady, but I asked: “You mean the Irishman called Stumps?”
“Stumps!” exclaimed Kinney. “What a strange name. Too strange to be true. It’s an alias!” I was incensed that Kinney should charge the friends of the lovely lady with being criminals. Had it been any one else I would have at once resented it, but to be angry with Kinney is difficult. ”

“ Part I I HAD made up my mind that when my vacation came I would spend it seeking adventures. I have always wished for adventures, but, though I am old enough—I was twenty-five last October—and have always gone half-way to meet them, adventures avoid me. Kinney says it is my fault. He holds that if you want adventures you must go after them.
Kinney sits next to me at Joyce & Carboy’s, the woolen manufacturers, where I am a stenographer, and Kinney is a clerk, and we both have rooms at Mrs. Shaw’s boarding-house. Kinney is only a year older than myself, but he is always meeting with adventures. ”

“ I am here to protect you and Stumps. I am under obligation to no one. I’m—”
“Can you row?” I asked.
“Why don’t you ask your pal?” he demanded savagely; “he rowed on last year’s crew.”
“Phil!” cried Lady Moya. Her voice suggested a temper I had not suspected. “You will row or you can get out and walk! Take the oars,” she commanded, “and be civil!” Lady Moya, with the tiller in her hand, sat in the stern; Stumps, with Kinney huddled at his knees, was stowed away forward. I took the stroke and Aldrich the bow oars. ”

“ No one will go shares in an adventure with Joe Kinney, a twenty-dollar-a-week clerk, the human adding machine, the hall-room boy. But Forbes Kinney, Esq., with a bag from Europe, and a Harvard ribbon round his hat—”
“Is that a Harvard ribbon round your hat?” I asked.
“It is!” declared Kinney; “and I have a Yale ribbon, and a Turf Club ribbon, too. They come on hooks, and you hook ’em on to match your clothes, or the company you keep. And, what’s more,” he continued, with some heat, “I’ve borrowed a tennis racket and a golf bag full of sticks, and you take care you don’t give me away.” ”

“ Two strokes brought me to the yawl, and, scrambling into her and casting her off, I paddled back to the steamer. As I lay under the stern I heard from the lower deck the voice of Kinney raised importantly.
“Ladies first!” he cried. “Her ladyship first, I mean,” he corrected. Even on leaving what he believed to be a sinking ship, Kinney could not forget his manners. But Mr. Aldrich had evidently forgotten his. I heard him shout indignantly: “I’ll be damned if I do!”
The voice of Lady Moya laughed.
“You’ll be drowned if you don’t!” she answered. I saw a black shadow poised upon the rail. ”

“ Because, as he himself says, he has so vivid an imagination that what he lacks he can “make believe” he has, and the pleasure of possession is his.
Kinney gives a great deal of thought to his clothes, and the question of what he should wear on his vacation was upon his mind. When I said I thought it was nothing to worry about, he snorted indignantly. “YOU wouldn’t!” he said. “If I’D been brought up in a catboat, and had a tan like a red Indian, and hair like a Broadway blonde, I wouldn’t worry either. Mrs. Shaw says you look exactly like a British peer in disguise.” ”

“ Shaw’s basement dining-room and in the subway need cause us no anxiety. And so, along these lines, throughout the sleepless, sultry nights of June, July, and August, we fought it out. There was not a summer resort within five hundred miles of New York City we did not consider. From the information bureaus and passenger agents of every railroad leaving New York, Kinney procured a library of time-tables, maps, folders, and pamphlets, illustrated with the most attractive pictures of summer hotels, golf links, tennis courts, and boat-houses. ”

“ After dinner, in spite of my protests, Kinney set forth to interview him and, as he described it, to “lead him on” to commit himself. I feared Kinney was much more likely to commit himself than the other, and when I saw them seated together I watched from a distance with much anxiety.
An hour later, while I was alone, a steward told me the purser would like to see me. I went to his office, and found gathered there Stumps, his American friend, the night watchman of the boat, and the purser. As though inviting him to speak, the purser nodded to the American. ”

“ I had noticed it; and I also recalled the fact that Stumps had said to the lovely lady: “He told me I could come on deck as soon as we started.”
The words seemed to bear out what Kinney claimed he had overheard. But not wishing to encourage him, of what I had heard I said nothing.
“He may be dodging a summons,” I suggested. “He is wanted, probably, only as a witness. It might be a civil suit, or his chauffeur may have hit somebody.”
Kinney shook his head sadly.
“Excuse me,” he said, “but I fear you lack imagination. Those men are rascals, dangerous rascals, and the woman is their accomplice. ”

“ When we reached the upper deck we pushed out of the crush at the gangway and, to keep our footing, for there was a strong list to port, clung to the big flag-staff at the stern. At each rail the crew were swinging the boats over the side, and around each boat was a crazy, fighting mob. Above our starboard rail towered the foremast of a schooner. She had rammed us fair amidships, and in her bows was a hole through which you could have rowed a boat. ”

“ You think we are crooks, escaping. You both—”
Aldrich snorted contemptuously.
“That’s a likely story!” he cried. “No wonder you don’t want to tell that to the police!”
From the bow came an exclamation, and Lady Moya rose to her feet.
“Phil!” she said, “you bore me!” She picked her way across the thwart to where Kinney sat at the stroke oar.
“My brother and I often row together,” she said; “I will take your place.”
When she had seated herself we were so near that her eyes looked directly into mine. Drawing in the oars, she leaned upon them and smiled. ”

“ All of our best people will be there for the wedding. It is the most important social event of the season. You might almost call it an alliance.”
I went forward to watch them take on the freight, and Kinney stationed himself at the rail above the passengers gangway where he could see the other passengers arrive. He had dressed himself with much care, and was wearing his Yale hat-band, but when a very smart-looking youth came up the gangplank wearing a Harvard ribbon, Kinney hastily retired to our cabin and returned with one like it. ”

“ With awe Kinney pointed at the red funnels of the Mauretania.
“There is the boat that brought them to America,” he said. “I see,” he added, “that in this picture of him playing golf he wears one of those knit jackets the Eiselbaum has just marked down to three dollars and seventy-five cents. I wish—” he added regretfully.
“You can get one at New Bedford,” I suggested. ”

“ Kinney and I will explain it to you.”
LORD IVY, who was looking extremely bored, smiled and nodded, but young Aldrich laughed ironically.
“Mr. Kinney is in his state-room,” he said, “with a steward guarding the door and window. You can explain to-morrow to the police.”
I rounded indignantly upon the purser.
“Are you keeping Mr. Kinney a prisoner in his state-room?” I demanded. “If you are—”
“He doesn’t have to stay there,” protested the purser sulkily. “When he found the stewards were following him he went to his cabin.” ”