Richard Harding Davis

“ Again, as though I had disappeared from the face of the earth, Miss Briggs gazed coldly about her, and with dignity started to cross the street. Her dignity was so great that she glanced neither to the left nor right. In consequence she did not see an automobile that swung recklessly around a trolley-car and dived at her. But other people saw it and shrieked. I also shrieked, and dropping the suit-case and the “Log,” jumped into the street, grabbed Miss Briggs by both arms, and flung her back to the sidewalk. ”

“ As you entered there were counters for magazines and post-cards, popular music, and best-selling novels, while in the rear of the shop tables and shelves were stocked with ancient volumes, and on the wall surrounding them hung engravings, prints and woodcuts of even the eighteenth century. Just as the drugstore on the corner seemed to be a waiting station for those of New Bedford who used the trolley-cars, so for those who moved in automobiles, or still clung to the family carriage, Hatchardson's appeared to be less a shop than a public meeting-place. ”

“ So I cut out New York. My boy lives in a bathing suit now, and he can handle a catboat same as me. We have a kitchen garden, and hens, and the fishermen here will give you all the fish you can carry away—fish right out of the water. I guess I've smashed the high cost of living problem all right. I wouldn't go back to living in New York now—not if they gave me the PILGRIM.”
As though trying to prod my memory, I frowned. It was my conception of the part of a detective. “Hasn't Fletcher Farrell,” I asked, “a house in Fairharbor?”
“Harbor Castle,” said the mate promptly. ”

“ For Miss Briggs also I was able to make excuses. Why should she not protect herself from the advances of strange young men? If a popular novelist, and especially an ex-popular one, chose to go about disguised as a drummer for the Blue Bird automobile and behaved as such, and was treated as such, what right had he to complain? So I persuaded myself I had been punished as I deserved. But to salve my injured pride I assured myself also that any one who read my novels ought to know my attitude toward any lovely lady could be only respectful, protecting, and chivalrous. ”

“ Besides, one of the chorus might remember that three years back Fletcher Farrell had been a popular novelist and might recognize me, and Miss Briggs would discover I was not an automobile agent and that I had lied to her. I saw that I must continue to lie to her. I thought of names beginning with “F,” and selected “Frederick Fitzgibbon.” To christen yourself while your eyes are shut and your head rests on a curb-stone is not easy, and later I was sorry I had not called myself Fairchild as being more aristocratic. ”

“ I was so rattled that I nearly ran the car into a stone wall. I thought I was discovered and that Polly was playing with me. But her next words showed that she was innocent. She did not know that the man to whom she was talking and of whom she was talking were the same. “Of course you will say,” she went on, “that he is too romantic, that he is not true to life. But I never lived in the seventeenth century, so I don't know whether he is true to life or not. And I like romance. The life I lead in the store gives me all the reality I want. ”

“ Farrell's offer is made to you as an unmarried man. I cannot believe your attentions are serious, but whether they are serious or not, they must cease. The detective reports the pair of you are now the talk of Fairharbor. You are making me ridiculous. I do not want a shop-girl for a daughter-in-law and you will either give up her acquaintance or give up Harbor Castle!
I am no believer in ultimatums. In attaining one's end they seldom prove successful. I tore the note into tiny pieces, and defiantly, with Polly in the seat beside me, drove into the open country. ”

“ I was in love with life, with New Bedford, and with Polly Briggs. I had been in love before but never with a young lady who worked in a shop, and I found that loving a lady so occupied gives one a tremendous advantage. For when you call she must always be at home, nor can she plead another engagement. ”

“ I love you more than a two-thousand-ton yacht, the interest on one million dollars, and Harbor Castle!”
It was a wasteful remark, for Polly instantly drew away.
“What DO you mean?” she laughed.
“Fletcher Farrell of Harbor Castle,” I explained, “offered me those things, minus you. But I wanted you.”
“I see,” cried Polly, “he wanted to adopt you. He always talks of that. I am sorry for him. He wants a son so badly.” She sighed softly, “Poor uncle!”
“Poor WHAT!” I yelled.
“Didn't you know,” exclaimed Polly, “that Mrs. Farrell was a Briggs! She was my father's sister.” ”

“ A clever, young businessman they did not want. Their business affairs they were quit able to manage themselves. But they would like as an adopted son one who had already added glory to the name of Farrell, which glory he was willing to share.
“We wouldn't tie you down,” she urged “but we would expect you to live at Harbor Castle a part of your time, and to call us Ma and Pa. You would have your own rooms, and your own servant, and there is a boat-house on the harbor front, where you could write your novels.” ”

“ Compared with my steadily decreasing income, how enormous my debts appeared; but when compared with the income of a man worth—say-five million dollars, how ridiculous! I had no more than reached my apartment, than a messenger-boy arrived with an envelope. It contained a ticket for a round trip on the New Bedford Line boat leaving that afternoon, a ticket for a stateroom, and a note from Curtis Spencer. ”

“ My dear boy, your uncle elect sends his heartiest congratulations to you and love to Polly. Don't make any plans until you hear from me—am leaving to-night. FLETCHER FARRELL.
In terror Polly fled into my arms. Even when NOT in terror it was a practice I strongly encouraged.
“We are lost!” she cried. “They will adopt us in spite of ourselves. They will lock us up for life in Harbor Castle! I don't WANT to be adopted. ”

“ I added with pathos, “I haven't sold a car yet!”
Miss Briggs raised her beautiful eyebrows skeptically. “Have you tried?” she said.
A brilliant idea came to me. In a side street I had passed a garage where Photaix cars were advertised for hire. I owned a Phoenix, and I thought I saw a way by which, for a happy hour, I might secure the society of Miss Briggs.
“I am an agent and demonstrator for the Phoenix also,” I said glibly; “maybe I could show you one?”
“Show me one?” exclaimed Miss Briggs. “One sees them everywhere! They are always under your feet!” ”

“ At this, knowing none wanted my novels, I may have winced, for, misreading my discontent, Farrell hastily interrupted.
“You won't have to work at all,” he protested heartily. “My son can afford to live like a lord. You'll get all the spending money you want, and if you're fond of foreign parts, you can take the yacht wherever you please!” ”

“ 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. ”

“ THE LOG OF THE “JOLLY POLLY”
By Richard Harding Davis
Temptation came to me when I was in the worst possible position to resist it.
It is a way temptation has. Whenever I swear off drinking invariably I am invited to an ushers' dinner. Whenever I am rich, only the highbrow publications that pay the least, want my work. But the moment I am poverty-stricken the MANICURE GIRL'S MAGAZINE and the ROT AND SPOT WEEKLY spring at me with offers of a dollar a word. Temptation always is on the job. When I am down and out temptation always is up and at me. ”

“ Before making their offer, for six months, the Farrells had had me “looked up,” but, without knowing anything of them, after a talk of ten minutes I had turned them down. “Was that,” he asked, “intelligent? Was it fair to the Farrells?” He continued to tempt me.
“They told you to think it over,” he persisted. “Very well, then, think it over at Fairharbor! For the next three weeks the Farrells will be at Cape May. The coast is clear. Go to Fairharbor as somebody else and be your own detective. Find out if what they tell you is true. Get inside information. Get inside Harbor Castle. ”

“ Polly furnished the library, chiefly with my own books, and “The Log of the JOLLY POLLY.” I furnished the kitchen. For a man cannot live on honeysuckles alone. My future uncle-in-law was gentle but firm.
“You can't get away from the fact,” he said, “that you will be my nephew, whether you like it or not. So, be kind to an old man and let him give the bride away and let her be married from Harbor Castle.”
In her white and green High Flier car and all of her diamonds, Mrs. Farrell called on Polly and begged the same boon. We were too happy to see any one else dissatisfied ”

“ My pleasure in these led to my being passed on to a row of “antique” shops filled with relics of the days of whaling and also with genuine pie-crust tables, genuine flint-lock muskets, genuine Liverpool pitchers. I coveted especially old-time engravings of the whalers, and was told at Hatchardson's book-store on the main street others could be found in profusion. ”

“ They fought for the Cardinal or the King, and each loved a high-born demoiselle who was a ward of the King or the Cardinal, and with feminine perversity, always of whichever one her young man was fighting. ”