Joe Kinney, a twenty-dollar-a-week clerk, the human adding machine,
the hall-room boy. But Forbes Kinney, Esq., with a bag from
Europe, and a Harvard ribbon round his hat--"

"Is that a Harvard ribbon round your hat?" I asked.

"It is!" declared Kinney; "and I have a Yale ribbon, and a Turf
Club ribbon, too. They come on hooks, and you hook 'em on to match
your clothes, or the company you keep. And, what's more," he
continued, with some heat, "I've borrowed a tennis racket and a
golf bag 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."