full of sticks, and you take care you don’t give me away.”
“I see,” I returned, “that you are going to get us into a lot of trouble.”
“I was thinking,” said Kinney, looking at me rather doubtfully, “it might help a lot if for the first week you acted as my secretary, and during the second week I was your secretary.”
Sometimes, when Mr. Joyce goes on a business trip, he takes me with him as his private stenographer, and the change from office work is very pleasant; but I could not see why I should spend one week of my holiday writing letters for Kinney.
“You wouldn’t write any letters,” he explained. “But if I could tell people you were my private secretary, it would naturally give me a certain importance.”
“If it will make you any happier,” I said, “you can tell people I am a British peer in disguise.”
“There is no use in being nasty about it,” protested Kinney. “I am only trying to show you a way that would lead to adventure.”
“It surely would!” I assented. “It would lead us to jail.”
The last week in August came, and, as to where we were to go we still were undecided, I suggested we leave it to chance.
“The first thing,” 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.
“I have a terrible fear,” he declared, “that, with this limit of yours, we will wake up in Asbury Park.”
Friday night came and found us prepared for departure, and at midnight we held our lottery. In a pillow-case we placed twenty slips of paper, on each of which was written
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