The Log of the Jolly Polly | Page 4

possess a certain charm. So, when the elevator boy telephoned that Mr. and Mrs. Farrell were calling, I told him to bring them up.
My first glance at the Farrells convinced me the interview was a waste of time. I was satisfied that from two such persons, nothing to my advantage could possibly emanate. On the contrary, from their lack of ease, it looked as though they had come to beg or borrow. They resembled only a butler and housekeeper applying for a new place under the disadvantage of knowing they had no reference from the last one. Of the two, I better liked the man. He was an elderly, pleasant-faced Irishman, smooth-shaven, red-cheeked, and with white hair. Although it was July, he wore a frock coat, and carried a new high hat that glistened. As though he thought at any moment it might explode, he held it from him, and eyed it fearfully. Mrs. Farrell was of a more sophisticated type. The lines in her face and hands showed that for years she might have known hard physical work. But her dress was in the latest fashion, and her fingers held more diamonds than, out of a showcase, I ever had seen.
With embarrassment old man Farrell began his speech. Evidently it had been rehearsed and as he recited it, in swift asides, his wife prompted him; but to note the effect he was making, she kept her eyes upon me. Having first compared my name, fame, and novels with those of Charles Dickens, Walter Scott, and Archibald Clavering Gunter, and to the disadvantage of those gentlemen, Farrell said the similarity of our names often had been commented upon, and that when from my letter he had learned our families both were from the South of Ireland, he had a premonition we might be related. Duncannon, where he was born, he pointed out, was but forty miles from Youghal, and the fishing boats out of Waterford Harbor often sought shelter in Blackwater River. Had any of my forebears, he asked, followed the herring?
Alarmed, lest at this I might take offense, Mrs. Farrell interrupted him.
"The Fletchers and O'Farrells of Youghal she exclaimed, "were gentry. What would they be doing in a trawler?"
I assured her that so far as I knew, 1750 being before my time, they might have been smugglers and pirates.
"All I ever heard of the Farrells," I told her, begins after they settled in New York. And there is no one I can ask concerning them. My father and mother are dead; all my father's relatives are dead, and my mother's relatives are as good as dead. I mean," I added, "we don't speak!"
To my surprise, this information appeared to afford my visitors great satisfaction. They exchanged hasty glances.
"Then," exclaimed Mr. Farrell, eagerly; "if I understand you, you have no living relations at all--barring those that are dead!"
"Exactly!" I agreed.
He drew a deep sigh of relief. With apparent irrelevance but with a carelessness that was obviously assumed, he continued.
"Since I come to America," he announced, "I have made heaps of money. "As though in evidence of his prosperity, he flashed the high hat. In the sunlight it coruscated like one of his wife's diamonds. "Heaps of money," he repeated. "The mills are still in my name, he went on, "but five years since I sold them-- We live on the income. We own Harbor Castle, the finest house on the whole waterfront."
"When all the windows are lit up," interjected Mrs. Farrell, "it's often took for a Fall River boat!"
"When I was building it," Farrell continued, smoothly, "they called it Farrell's Folly; but not NOW." In friendly fashion he winked at me, "Standard Oil," he explained, "offered half a million for it. They wanted my wharf for their tank steamers. But, I needed it for my yacht!"
I must have sat up rather too suddenly, for, seeing the yacht had reached home, Mr. Farrell beamed. Complacently his wife smoothed an imaginary wrinkle in her skirt.
"Eighteen men!" she protested, "with nothing to do but clean brass and eat three meals a day!"
Farrell released his death grip on the silk hat to make a sweeping gesture.
"They earn their wages," he said generously.
"Aren't they taking us this week to Cap May?"
"They're taking the yacht to Cape May! corrected Mrs. Farrell; "not ME!"
"The sea does not agree with her," explained Farrell; "WE'RE going by automobile." Mrs. Farrell now took up the wondrous tale
It's a High Flyer, 1915 model," she explained; "green, with white enamel leather inside, and red wheels outside. You can see it from the window."
Somewhat dazed, I stepped to the window and found you could see it from almost anywhere. It was as large as a freight car; and was entirely surrounded by taxi-starters, bellboys, and nurse-maids. The chauffeur, and a deputy chauffeur, in