The Log of the Jolly Polly | Page 4

had settled in New York, and that all
my relations on the Farrell side either were still at Youghal, or dead.
Mine was not an encouraging letter; nor did I mean it to be; and I was
greatly surprised two days later to receive a telegram reading,
"Something to your advantage to communicate; wife and self calling on
you Thursday at noon. Fletcher Farrell." I was annoyed, but also
interested. The words "something to your advantage" always 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