d visit You," suggested Farrell,
I thought, a trifle wistfully. "There's bathing, tennis, eight...
bedrooms, billiard-room, art gallery----"

"You told him that!" said Mrs. Farrell.

I was greatly at a loss. Their offer was preposterous, but to them, it
was apparently a perfectly possible arrangement. Nor were they acting
on impulse. Mrs. Farrell had admitted that for six months she had had me
"trailed." How to say "No" and not give offense, I found difficult. They
were deeply in earnest and I could see that Farrell, at least, was by
instinct generous, human, and kind. It was, in fact, a most generous
offer. But how was I to tell them tactfully I was not for sale, that I
was not looking for "ready-to-wear" parents, and that if I were in the
market, they were not the parents I would choose. I had a picture of
life at Harbor Castle, dependent upon the charity of the Farrells. I
imagined what my friends would say to me, and worse, what they would say
behind my back. But I was not forced to a refusal.

Mr. Farrell rose.

"We don't want to hurry you," he said. "We want you to think it over.
Maybe if we get acquainted----"

Mrs. Farrell smiled upon me ingratiatingly.

"Why don't we get acquainted now?" she demanded. "We're motoring down
to Cape May to stay three weeks. Why don't you come along--as our
guest--and see how you like us?"

I assured them, almost too hastily, that already was deeply engaged.

As they departed, Farrell again admonished me to think it over.

"And look me up at Dun's and Bradstreet's," he advised. "Ask 'em about
me at the Waldorf. Ask the head waiters and bellhops if I look twice at
a five spot!"

It seemed an odd way to select a father, but I promised.

I escorted them even to the sidewalk, and not without envy watched them
sweep toward the Waldorf in the High Flyer, 1915 model. I caught myself
deciding, were it mine, I would paint it gray.

I was lunching at the Ritz with Curtis Spencer, and I looked forward to
the delight he would take in my story of the Farrells. He would probably
want to write it. He was my junior, but my great friend; and as a
novelist his popularity was where five years earlier mine had been. But
he belonged to the new school. His novels smelled like a beauty parlor;
and his heroines, while always beautiful, were, on occasions, virtuous,
but only when they thought it would pay.

Spencer himself was as modern as his novels, and I was confident his
view of my adve