public left me. It turned to white-slave and crook plays, and to
novels true to life; so true to life that one felt the author must
at one time have been a masseur in a Turkish bath.

So, my heroines in black velvet, and my heroes with long swords
were "scrapped." As one book reviewer put it, "To expect the public
of to-day to read the novels of Fletcher Farrell is like asking
people to give up 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 186o. 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.