Assuring myself that I was moved only by curiosity, I accepted the invitation, nor, though it would greatly have helped the appearance of the cemetery-like beds, did I pick the flowers. On a closer view Harbor Castle certainly possessed features calculated to make an impecunious author Stop, look, and listen. I pictured it peopled with my friends. I saw them at the long mahogany table of which through the French window I got a glimpse, or dancing in the music-room, or lounging on the wicker chairs on the sweeping verandas. I could see them in flannels at tennis, in bathing-suits diving from the spring-board of the swimming pool, departing on excursions in the motor-cars that at the moment in front of the garage were being sponged and polished, so that they flashed like mirrors. And I thought also of the two-thousand-ton yacht and to what far countries, to what wonderful adventures it might carry me. But all of these pictures lacked one feature. In none of them did Polly Briggs appear. For, as I very well knew, that was something the ambitions of Mrs. Farrell would not permit. That lady wanted me as a son only because she thought I was a social asset. By the same reasoning, as a daughter-in-law, she would not want a shop-girl, especially not one who as a shop-girl was known to all New Bedford. My mood as I turned my back upon the golden glories of Harbor Castle and walked to New Bedford was thoughtful. I had telegraphed my servant to bring me more clothes and my Phoenix car; and as I did not want him inquiring for Fletcher Farrell had directed him to come by boat to Fall River. Accordingly, the next morning, I took the trolley to that city, met him at the wharf, and sent him back to New York. I gave him a check with instructions to have it cashed in that city and to send the money, and my mail, to Frederick Fitzgibbon. This ALIAS I explained to him by saying I was gathering material for an article to prove one could live on fifty cents a day. He was greatly relieved to learn I did not need a valet to help me prove it.