ollowed 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. You would think
women in distress would appeal to some one bigger and stronger; would
sooner ask a policeman. But, on the contrary, it is to Kinney that women
always run, especially, as I have said, beautiful women. Nothing of the
sort ever happens to me. I suppose, as Kinney says, it is because he was
born and brought up in New York City and looks and acts like a New York
man, while I, until a year ago, have always lived at Fairport. Fairport
is a very pretty harbor, but it does not train one for adventures. We
arranged to take our vacation at the same time, and together. At least
Kinney so arranged it. I see a good deal of him, and in looking forward
to my vacation, not the least pleasant feature of it was that everything
connected with Joyce & Carboy and Mrs. Shaw's boarding-house would be
left behind me. But when Kinney proposed we should go together, I could
not see how, without being rude, I could refuse his company, and when he
pointed out that for an expedition in search of adventure I could not
select a better guide, I felt that he was right.

"Sometimes," he said, "I can see you don't believe that half the things
I tell you have happened to me, really have happened. Now, isn't that
so?"

To find the answer that would not hurt his feelings I hesitated, but he
did not wait for my answer. He seldom does.

"Well, on this trip," he went on, "you will see Kinney on the job. You
won't have to take my word for it. You will see adventures walk up and
eat out of my hand."

Our vacation came on the first of September, but we began to plan for it
in April, and up to the night before we left New York we never ceased
planning. Our difficulty was that having been brought up at Fairport,
which is on the Sound, north of New London, I was homesick for a smell
of salt marshes and for the sight of water and ships. Though they were
only schooners carrying cement, I wanted to sit in the sun on the
string-piece