"You know that's not the answer," he protested. "Why do the typewriter
girls at the office always go to _you_ to sharpen their pencils and tell
them how to spell the hard words? Why do the girls in the lunch-rooms
serve you first? Because they'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't noticed!" he kept
repeating. "He hadn't noticed!" For his vacation Kinney bought a
second-hand suit-case. It was covered with labels of hotels in France
and Switzerland.
"Joe," I said, "if you carry that bag you will be a walking falsehood."
Kinney's name is Joseph Forbes Kinney; he dropped the Joseph because he
said it did not appear often enough in the _Social Register_, and could
be found only in the Old Testament, and he 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 have as much right to
carry a second-hand bag as a new one. The bag says _it_ has been to
Europe. It does not say that _I_ have been there."
"But, you probably will," I pointed out, "and then some one who has
really visited those places--"
"Listen!" commanded Kinney.
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