Kinney was wearing his hat. He took it off and hurled it to the floor.
"It was that damned hat!" he cried. "It's a Harvard ribbon, all right,
but only men on the crew can wear it! How was I to know _that?_ I saw
Aldrich looking at it in a puzzled way, and when he said, 'I see you are
on the crew,' I guessed what it meant, and said I was on last year's
crew. Unfortunately _he_ was on last year's crew! That's what made him
suspect me, and after dinner he put me through a third degree. I must
have given the wrong answers, for suddenly he jumped up and called me a
swindler and an impostor. I got back by telling him he was a crook and
that I was a detective, and that I had sent a wireless to have him
arrested at New Bedford. He challenged me to prove I was a detective,
and, of course, I couldn't, and he called up two stewards and told them
to watch me while he went after the purser. I didn't fancy being
watched, so I came here."
"When did you tell him I was the Earl of Ivy?"
Kinney ran his fingers through his hair and groaned dismally.
"That was before the boat started," he said; "it was only a joke. He
didn't seem to be interested in my conversation, so I thought I'd liven
it up a bit by saying I was a friend of Lord Ivy's.
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