"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