p
the bunny hug and go back to the lancers."

And, to make it harder, I was only thirty years old.

It was at this depressing period in my career that I received a letter
from Fairharbor, Massachusetts, signed Fletcher Farrell. The letter was
written on the business paper of the Farrell Cotton Mills, and asked if
I were related to the Farrells of Duncannon, of the County Wexford,
who emigrated to Massachusetts in 1860. The writer added that he had a
grandfather named Fletcher and suggested we might be related. From the
handwriting of Fletcher Farrell and from the way he ill-treated the
King's English I did not feel the ties of kinship calling me very loud.
I replied briefly that my people originally came from Youghal, in County
Cork, that as early as 1730 they 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