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23 pages

English

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pubOne.info present you this new edition. I had made up my mind that when my vacation came I would spend it seeking adventures. I have always wished for adventures, but, though I am old enough- I was twenty-five last October- and have always gone half-way to meet them, adventures avoid me. Kinney says it is my fault. He holds that if you want adventures you must go after them.

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	06 novembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819934905
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0050€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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THE MAKE-BELIEVE MAN
By Richard Harding Davis
I
I had made up my mind that when my vacation came Iwould spend it seeking adventures. I have always wished foradventures, but, though I am old enough— I was twenty-five lastOctober— and have always gone half-way to meet them, adventuresavoid me. Kinney says it is my fault. He holds that if you wantadventures you must go after them.
Kinney sits next to me at Joyce & Carboy's, thewoollen manufacturers, where I am a stenographer, and Kinney is aclerk, and we both have rooms at Mrs. Shaw's boarding-house. Kinneyis only a year older than myself, but he is always meeting withadventures. At night, when I have sat up late reading law, so thatI may fit myself for court reporting, and in the hope that some dayI may become a member of the bar, he will knock at my door and tellme some surprising thing that has just happened to him. Sometimeshe has followed a fire-engine and helped people from a fire-escape,or he has pulled the shield off a policeman, or at the bar of theHotel Knickerbocker has made friends with a stranger, who turns outto be no less than a nobleman or an actor. And women, especiallybeautiful women, are always pursuing Kinney in taxicabs and callingupon him for assistance. Just to look at Kinney, without knowinghow clever he is at getting people out of their difficulties, hedoes not appear to be a man to whom you would turn in time oftrouble. You would think women in distress would appeal to some onebigger and stronger; would sooner ask a policeman. But, on thecontrary, it is to Kinney that women always run, especially, as Ihave said, beautiful women. Nothing of the sort ever happens to me.I suppose, as Kinney says, it is because he was born and brought upin 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 verypretty harbor, but it does not train one for adventures. Wearranged to take our vacation at the same time, and together. Atleast Kinney so arranged it. I see a good deal of him, and inlooking forward to my vacation, not the least pleasant feature ofit was that everything connected with Joyce & Carboy and Mrs.Shaw's boarding-house would be left behind me. But when Kinneyproposed we should go together, I could not see how, without beingrude, I could refuse his company, and when he pointed out that foran expedition in search of adventure I could not select a betterguide, I felt that he was right.
“Sometimes, ” he said, “I can see you don't believethat half the things I tell you have happened to me, really havehappened. Now, isn't that so? ”
To find the answer that would not hurt his feelingsI hesitated, but he did not wait for my answer. He seldom does.
“Well, on this trip, ” he went on, “you will seeKinney on the job. You won't have to take my word for it. You willsee adventures walk up and eat out of my hand. ”
Our vacation came on the first of September, but webegan to plan for it in April, and up to the night before we leftNew York we never ceased planning. Our difficulty was that havingbeen brought up at Fairport, which is on the Sound, north of NewLondon, I was homesick for a smell of salt marshes and for thesight of water and ships. Though they were only schooners carryingcement, I wanted to sit in the sun on the string-piece of a wharfand watch them. I wanted to beat about the harbor in a catboat, andfeel the tug and pull of the tiller. Kinney protested that that wasno way to spend a vacation or to invite adventure. His face was setagainst Fairport. The conversation of clam-diggers, he said, didnot appeal to him; and he complained that at Fairport our onlychance of adventure would be my capsizing the catboat or robbing alobster-pot. He insisted we should go to the mountains, where wewould meet what he always calls “our best people. ” In September,he explained, everybody goes to the mountains to recuperate afterthe enervating atmosphere of the sea-shore. To this I objected thatthe little sea air we had inhaled at Mrs. Shaw's basementdining-room and in the subway need cause us no anxiety. And so,along these lines, throughout the sleepless, sultry nights of June,July, and August, we fought it out. There was not a summer resortwithin five hundred miles of New York City we did not consider.From the information bureaus and passenger agents of every railroadleaving New York, Kinney procured a library of timetables, maps,folders, and pamphlets, illustrated with the most attractivepictures of summer hotels, golf links, tennis courts, andboat-houses. For two months he carried on a correspondence with theproprietors of these hotels; and in comparing the different pricesthey asked him for suites of rooms and sun parlors derived constantsatisfaction.
“The Outlook House, ” he would announce, “wantstwenty-four dollars a day for bedroom, parlor, and private bath.While for the same accommodations the Carteret Arms asks onlytwenty. But the Carteret has no tennis court; and then again, theOutlook has no garage, nor are dogs allowed in the bedrooms. ”
As Kinney could not play lawn tennis, and as neitherof us owned an automobile or a dog, or twenty-four dollars, thesedetails to me seemed superfluous, but there was no health inpointing that out to Kinney. Because, as he himself says, he has sovivid an imagination that what he lacks he can “make believe” hehas, and the pleasure of possession is his.
Kinney gives a great deal of thought to his clothes,and the question of what he should wear on his vacation was uponhis mind. When I said I thought it was nothing to worry about, hesnorted indignantly. “YOU wouldn't! ” he said. “If I'D been broughtup in a catboat, and had a tan like a red Indian, and hair like aBroadway blonde, I wouldn't worry either. Mrs. Shaw says you lookexactly like a British peer in disguise. ” I had never seen aBritish peer, with or without his disguise, and I admit I wasinterested.
“Why are the girls in this house, ” demanded Kinney,“always running to your room to borrow matches? Because they admireyour CLOTHES? If they're crazy about clothes, why don't they cometo ME for matches? ”
“You are always out at night, ” I said.
“You know that's not the answer, ” he protested.“Why do the type-writer girls at the office always go to YOU tosharpen their pencils and tell them how to spell the hard words?Why do the girls in the lunch-rooms serve you first? Becausethey're hypnotized by your clothes? Is THAT it? ”
“Do they? ” I asked; “I hadn't noticed. ”
Kinney snorted and tossed up his arms. “He hadn'tnoticed! ” he kept repeating. “He hadn't noticed! ” For hisvacation Kinney bought a second-hand suit-case. It was covered withlabels of hotels in France and Switzerland.
“Joe, ” I said, “if you carry that bag you will be awalking falsehood. ”
Kinney's name is Joseph Forbes Kinney; he droppedthe Joseph because he said it did not appear often enough in theSocial Register, and could be found only in the Old Testament, andhe has asked me to call him Forbes. Having first known him as “Joe,” I occasionally forget.
“My name is NOT Joe, ” he said sternly, “and I haveas much right to carry a second-hand bag as a new one. The bag saysIT has been to Europe. It does not say that I have been there.”
“But, you probably will, ” I pointed out, “and thensome one who has really visited those places— ”
“Listen! ” commanded Kinney. “If you want adventuresyou must be somebody of importance. No one will go shares in anadventure with Joe Kinney, a twenty-dollar-a-week clerk, the humanadding machine, the hall-room boy. But Forbes Kinney, Esq. , with abag from Europe, and a Harvard ribbon round his hat— ”
“Is that a Harvard ribbon round your hat? ” Iasked.
“It is! ” declared Kinney; “and I have a Yaleribbon, and a Turf Club ribbon, too. They come on hooks, and youhook 'em on to match your clothes, or the company you keep. And,what's more, ” he continued, with some heat, “I've borrowed atennis racket and a golf bag full of sticks, and you take care youdon't give me away. ”
“I see, ” I returned, “that you are going to get usinto a lot of trouble. ”
“I was thinking, ” said Kinney, looking at me ratherdoubtfully, “it might help a lot if for the first week you acted asmy secretary, and during the second week I was your secretary.”
Sometimes, when Mr.