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 head-lines.
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,