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 timetables, maps, folders, and pamphlets,
illustrated with the most attractive pictures of summer hotels, golf
links, tennis courts, and boat-houses. For two months he carried on a
correspondence with the proprietors of these hotels; and in comparing
the different prices they asked him for suites of rooms and sun parlors
derived constant satisfaction.

"The Outlook House," he would announce, "wants twenty-four dollars a day
for bedroom, parlor, and private bath. While for the same accommodations
the Carteret Arms asks only twenty. But the Carteret has no tennis
court; and then again, the Outlook has no garage, nor are dogs allowed
in the bedrooms."

As Kinney could not play lawn tennis, and as neither of us owned an
automobile or a dog, or twenty-four dollars, these details to me seemed
superfluous, but there was no health in pointing that out to Kinney.
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." 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? Because they're hypnotized by your clothes? Is THAT
it?"

"Do they?" I asked; "I hadn't noticed."

Kinney snorted and tossed up his arms. "He hadn't noticed!" he kept
repeating. "He hadn't noticed!" For his vacation Kinney bought a
seco