ar's crew! That's what made him
suspect me, and after dinner he put me through a third degree. I must
have given the wrong answers, for suddenly he jumped up and called me a
swindler and an impostor. I got back by telling him he was a crook and
that I was a detective, and that I had sent a wireless to have him
arrested at New Bedford. He challenged me to prove I was a detective,
and, of course, I couldn't, and he called up two stewards and told them
to watch me while he went after the purser. I didn't fancy being
watched, so I came here."

"When did you tell him I was the Earl of Ivy?"

Kinney ran his fingers through his hair and groaned dismally.

"That was before the boat started," he said; "it was only a joke. He
didn't seem to be interested in my conversation, so I thought I'd liven
it up a bit by saying I was a friend of Lord Ivy's. And you happened to
pass, and I happened to remember Mrs. Shaw saying you looked like a
British peer, so I said: 'That is my friend Lord Ivy.' I said I was your
secretary, and he seemed greatly interested, and--" Kinney added
dismally, "I talked too much. I am _so_ sorry," he begged. "It's going
to be awful for you!" His eyes suddenly lit with hope. "Unless," he
whispered, "we can escape!"

The same thought was in my mind, but the idea was absurd, and
impracticable. I knew there was no escape. I knew we were sentenced at
sunrise to a most humiliating and disgraceful experience. The newspapers
would regard anything that concerned Lord Ivy as news. In my turn I also
saw the hideous headlines. What would my father and mother at Fairport
think; what would my old friends there think; and, what was of even
greater importance, how would Joyce & Carboy act? What chance was there
left me, after I had been arrested as an impostor, to become a
stenographer in the law courts--in time, a member of the bar? But I
found that what, for the moment, distressed me most was that the lovely
lady would consider me a knave or a fool. The thought made me exclaim
with exasperation. Had it been possible to abandon Kinney, I would have
dropped overboard and made for shore. The night was warm and foggy, and
the short journey to land, to one who had been brought up like a duck,
meant nothing more than a wetting. But I did not see how I could desert
Kinney.

"Can you swim?" I asked.

"Of course not!" he answered gloomily; "and, besides," he added, "our
names are on our suitcases. We couldn't take them with us