"The eighteenth hole is six hundred and thirty-two yards—one of the longest in the country," I said, "and it is smooth as a barn floor after you carry the railroad tracks. That is a long carry, and most players go short and take the tracks on their second shot."

"Six hundred odd yards," he mused. "Let's see; over a third of a mile, eh?"

I said that it was, and a par hole in six.

"Anybody ever drive it yet?" he asked.

"Drive it?" I repeated, laughing. "Well, I should say not! I have reached the green in three only twice in all the times I have played it, and am well satisfied to be there in four."

"That proves nothing to me," he said, looking me over, "but you're a pretty husky-appearing chap at that. You're nearly six feet, aren't you, Smith?"

"A quarter of an inch more than six feet in my stockings," I said.

"And how much do you weigh?"

"One hundred and eighty-five."

"You'd ought to be able to drive a ball farther than you do," he said, with the air of one who had mastered the game in all its details. There is not a man in the club who can consistently out-drive me, and I'll wager that Kirkaldy himself cannot average ten yards more than I do, but what was the use of arguing with Harding?

It was easy to see that this magnate actually believed that his first stroke at a golf ball was no accident, and was confident that with a little practice he could far surpass that terrific drive of two hundred and seventy yards. But though I well knew what was coming to him I held my peace.

I asked Kirkaldy if he had ever known of a happening similar to Harding's now famous drive. He said he could not recall when a duffer had reached so great a distance, but it was not unusual for a husky novice to drive a few good balls before he began to attempt an improvement of a natural, but of course crude, stroke.

"But," I asked Kirkaldy, "how did Harding manage to drive it so far?"

"Strength and luck, mon," said our Scotch professional, "the more luck. It war th' same as when ye won a match with me by makin' th' last three holes in less than bogy. Luck, mon, is yer truest friend."

I think Kirkaldy is right.

"I never like to take up a thing unless it is difficult," said Harding, as we started for the eighteenth tee. "I like to do the things other men say cannot be done, and without blowing my own horn I have done a few of them. I am fond of work, but when I play I play with all my might. The boy who is not a good player will never make a good worker. You take a boy who is playing baseball, for instance. I can watch a game among youngsters and pick out those who are likely to win out later on in life."

"How?" I interrupted.

"By the way they go at it. The one who covers the most ground on a ball field will cover the most ground later on in whatever he undertakes. The one who plays to win, who takes chances even at the risk of making errors is the coming man. The boy who sits down in the out-field, on the theory that a ball is not likely to come in his direction, will be poor all his life. The boy who plays an unimportant position as if his very existence depended upon it will get along all right, and don't you forget it. But this golf game is so simple that it does not call on a man to let himself out. Billiards is my game. Billiards is a game of endless possibilities, and no matter how well a man plays there is always room for improvement."

That made me mad, and I resented this assertion the more for the reason that I once held the same views as he then expressed. I went right at him.

"When you have played as many games of golf as you have of billiards," I said, and I play a fair billiard game myself, "you will not mention them in the same breath. Let me assure you, Mr. Harding, that golf is the most difficult game in the world, and you have only the slightest conception of what you must master before you can play more than an indifferent sort of a game."

He smiled indulgently.

"What is there hard about it?" he demanded. "In billiards, for instance, you—"

"You play billiards on a table which is not more than five feet by ten," I broke in, "and you play golf on a table which may cover two hundred acres of hills, woods, marshes, ponds, brooks, and meadows. You play billiards in a room which is always at about the same temperature, and where there is not a breath of air stirring. You play golf out-of-doors, where it may be one hundred in the shade or far below freezing; under conditions of perfect calm, or with winds ranging all the way from a zephyr to gales from every point of the compass."

"There is something in that," he admitted, "but you need not get mad about it, Smith."

"Your billiard table is always the same," I continued. "It consists of the cloth and four cushions, and they are smooth as art can make them. Your golf course is never the same on any two days, and would not be if you played through all eternity. Sometimes the grass in a certain place is long, and sometimes it is short; sometimes it is thick, and again it is thin; sometimes the ground is hard from lack of rain, and again it is soft and spongy from an excess of rain. There are millions of variations in these conditions, and every one of them must be considered in making a perfect shot."

"Yes, I suppose that is so," he admitted, and I could see I had started him thinking.

"There are days when the air is light," I went on, "and when a certain stroke will send the ball where you wish it to go. There are other days when the air is heavy, and when a hit ball seems to have no life in it. You must allow for the force and direction of every slant of wind. There are conditions of atmosphere when objects seem near, and others when they seem far away, and you must take this into account."

He was silent, and I went on.

"On a billiard table your ball is always within easy reach. You stand on a level floor and play on a level table. In golf your ball never lands in the same place twice. It may be above you, or below you. It may lie in any one of ten million separate conformations of ground, and for each you must exercise judgment. Your clubs change in weight as you clean them; no two golf balls have the same degree of elasticity when new, and as you use them it decreases. But more than all else, you are not the same man physically or mentally on any two days. A slight increase in weight, the wearing of an extra garment, the congestion of a muscle or the stiffening of a chord may be sufficient to throw you off your stroke and seriously impair your game."

"Nonsense; I don't believe it," he declared. "When I once find out how to make a certain shot I will keep right on improving until I have it perfect."

"If that were possible golf would lose its charm," I said. "A man will go on making a certain shot with almost perfect accuracy for months, and all at once lose the knack of it, and not be able to recover it for months, and perhaps never. In order to hit a golf ball accurately there are scores of muscles which must act in perfect accord, and the several parts of the body must maintain certain positions during the various parts of the stroke. If the shoulder drops the quarter of an inch, if the heel rises too soon by the minutest fraction of a second, if either hand grasping the club turns in any degree the stroke is ruined. You will hit the ball, but it will not go the distance or the direction required."

"Must be a mighty hard game, from all that you say," he laughed, grimly. "Guess I'd better go back and not try it, but I notice that there was nothing the matter with the position of my muscles, cords, hands and the rest of my anatomy the other day when I whacked that ball out of sight. And I can do it again, Smith, and don't you forget it."

I preferred to await the arbitrament of events so far as that boast was concerned.

We had arrived at the eighteenth tee, and he looked over the field with much satisfaction. The railroad embankment is about one hundred and fifty yards from the tee, and few try to carry it. The old post road runs parallel to the line of this hole, and forms the western boundary of the Woodvale links. There is no bunker save the railroad bank for the entire distance, and it is an ideal hole for the golf "slugger."

"Where is the green?" asked Harding, standing on the elevated tee. I pointed in the line of the old church belfry, and after a long look he declared that he could see the white flag floating from the standard.

"Nobody ever drove it, you say?" he observed, throwing his shoulders back.

"Of course not," I laughed, and added, "and never will."

"Don't be too sure about that," he said, piling a mound of sand. "It's nothing more than a 'putt,' as you call it, to bat a ball over that railroad."

"You talk about driving six hundred yards to that green," I said, annoyed at his ignorant nerve, "I will bet you a box of cigars that you do not carry that railroad track in a month."

"Don't be foolish, Smith."

"Do you wish to bet?"

"Of course I do," he replied, teeing a ball, "and we'll get action on it in about ten seconds. Just keep your eye on this ball!"

Disdaining to take a practice stroke, he swung viciously at it. He must have caught it on the toe of his club, for it sliced to the right in a low and sweeping curve.

As I followed its flight I saw a farm wagon in the road. The driver had stopped his team, and was standing up watching Harding. I recognised Farmer Bishop, and noted that his sallow face was distorted in a disdainful grin, which froze on his lips when he saw the ball curving toward him.

It is difficult for an experienced golfer to dodge a sliced drive, even when he has a chance to run to one side or the other, but all that Bishop could do was to duck, which he did, with the result that the ball hit his left temple. He half fell and half jumped to the ground, and was not so badly hurt as to prevent his being the maddest agriculturist I have seen in many years.

He danced up and down at the edge of the road, his hand to his head, warm, loud words flowing in a torrent from his mouth.

Harding dropped his club and we both ran toward the injured man. Harding was the first to reach the fence, but he did not climb over.

"Did it hit you?" he asked Bishop.

The farmer took one more hop and then turned and faced the railroad magnate. There was a lump over his eye bigger than a hen's egg, and on it I could see the bramble marks of the ball. It was a moment before his rage permitted utterance. He spit out a mouthful of tobacco so as not to be handicapped.

"Did you hit me; you dod-gasted old poppinjay of a fat dude!" he exclaimed, shaking a brawny, freckled fist at Harding. "Did you hit me; you flabby old chromo! Do you suppose I fall out of my wagon and dance up and down this road for exercise; you old boiled lobster?"

"I am very sorry, sir," said Harding, amusement and growing anger struggling for mastery. "I wasn't shooting in this direction. Something happened to my ball; what do you call it, Smith?"



"You sliced it," I said.

"That's it; I sliced it," declared Harding, as if that were more or less of a valid excuse.

"You come over that fence an' I'll slice you!" roared Bishop, taking a step forward. "Things have come to a fine pass in this country if an honest farmer can't take his milk to town without riskin' bein' murdered by plutocrats with 'sliced balls' and all that blankety-blank tommyrot. Climb over on this side of the fence an' I'll lick seven kinds of stuffin' out of you in erbout a minute."

"Keep your shirt on!" retorted Harding, "you won't lick nobody."

He looked curiously at the maddened farmer.

"Your name is Bishop, isn't it?" he asked, and I wondered how he happened to know.

"Yes, my name's Bishop," was the sullen and defiant answer.

"Jim Bishop?"

"Yes; Jim Bishop."

Harding grinned good-naturedly.

"Don't you know who I am?" he asked.

"No, I don't, and I don't give a damn!" replied Bishop, looking at him more closely, I thought.

"Did you know a young fellow named Harding when you were a boy?" asked Harding.

"Bob Harding?"

"Yes, Bob Harding!"

"Do you mean to tell me that you're the Bob Harding who uster live on a farm near Buckfield, Maine?" asked Bishop, the anger dying from his voice.

"That's what I am!" declared the millionaire, as Bishop came toward him, a curious smile on his tanned face. "How are you, Jim?"

"Well; I'll be jiggered! How are you, Bob?" and they shook hands across the fence. For a moment neither spoke.

"It's thirty years or more since I've seen you," said Harding. "When did you move to this country?"

"Over twenty-five years ago," said Bishop. "And what have you been doing with yourself all these years? I surely hope you've found something better to do than play this here fool game an' knock people's heads off."

He tenderly rubbed the lump on his forehead.

"I just took this game up," said Harding rather sheepishly. "I've been building railroads."

"Are you Robert L. Harding, the railroad king that the papers talks so much erbout?" demanded Bishop.

"I guess I'm the fellow," admitted Harding.

"Well; I never would er believed it!" gasped Bishop, and then they shook hands again.

They sat on a rock and talked about Buckfield and their boyhood days for an hour. It seems that they were born and raised on adjoining farms, and were chums until Harding's father died, at which time Harding went West and found his fortune.

Not until the horses became restless and started to go home did Bishop note the passing of time. He cordially invited Harding and his daughter to come and call on him, and Harding did not hesitate in accepting the invitation.

Now that I think of it, none of us gave a thought to that ball, and I suppose it is out in the road yet. Harding said that was all the golf he wished that day, and so we went back to the club house.

"Talk about driving a ball six hundred yards, Smith," he said, as we came to the eighteenth tee. "I knocked that ball so far that I hit a boy in Maine, and that's hundreds of miles from here."



ENTRY NO. VIII

DOWNFALL OF MR. HARDING

I do not know whether to be annoyed or amused over the result of my second golf game with Miss Harding. It was not in the least like my anticipations.

Our first game was so romantic. It was as if the kindly skies had raised a dome over earth's most favoured spot and reserved it for our use. It was different to-day.

I presume it is necessary that beautiful maidens shall have fathers. I raise no doubt that Mr. Harding is a wonderful financier and railroad genius, and it is likely he is entitled to a vacation and to that relaxation which comes from taking exercise, but this does not justify him in—well, in "butting in" on our game. I don't use slang as a rule, but no other term so accurately describes the conduct of that gentleman this afternoon.

As for Carter—I have no words to express what I think of Carter.

If I had a daughter nineteen years old it would occur to me that she might prefer to play golf with a young gentleman somewhere near her own age rather than with me, especially if that young gentleman were a good golfer, and possessed of wealth, prospects, and honourable ambitions. But Mr. Harding treats her as if she were a school miss in short dresses. He persists in calling her "Kid," and only rarely does he address her by the beautiful name of Grace.

When Miss Harding started from the club house her father was on the lawn not many yards away engaged in the interesting but expensive experiment of trying to drive balls across the lake. He was buying new balls by the box—they cost $5.50 a box—with the joyous abandon of a pampered boy purchasing fire-crackers on the Fourth of July.

All he asks of a ball is "one crack at it," and the caddies were reaping a harvest. He had not made one decent drive, and was surprised and angry.

As luck would have it he turned and saw us as we were starting for the first tee. He had laid aside that flaming red-and-green coat, and was in his shirt sleeves. His face was crimson from exertion, and his hair wet with perspiration.

"Where are you going?" he called.

"We're going to play a round," I answered, with a sinking heart.

"Good; I'll go with you," he returned. "Chuck the rest of those balls into that sack," he said to one of his caddies, "and follow me."

What could I do but say we would be delighted to have him join us? We were waiting for him, when who should come from the club house but Carter.

"Hello there, Carter!" shouted Harding. "Come on and play with us! This is my first real game, and we'll make it a foursome, or whatever you call it. What d'ye say?"

"That's fine!" declared Carter.

I happen to know that he had already made up a game with Marshall, Boyd, and Chilvers, but he did not hesitate to abandon them for his long-coveted chance to play with Miss Harding.

"We'll have a great game," asserted Mr. Harding mopping his brow. "How shall we divide up? I suppose you're the best player, Carter, and Smith comes next, but I can beat the Kid, here," patting Miss Harding on the shoulder.

"I'll bet you cannot," I declared, angry that he should class Carter above me.

"Bet I cannot beat my Grace?" he exclaimed. I told him that such was my opinion.

"Of course I can beat you, papa," laughed Miss Harding. "You have never played, and know nothing of the game. I can beat you easily."

"Talk of the insolence and ingratitude of children!" he gasped. "Kid, I'm astonished at you! I'll teach both of you a lesson. What do you want to bet, Smith?"

I suggested that a box of balls would suit me as a bet.

"Box of monkeys!" exclaimed Harding. "I thought you were a sport, Smith! A box of balls don't last me as long as a box of cigarettes does Carter. Tell you what I'll do. We'll all keep track of our shots, and for every one I beat her you pay me a box of balls, and for every one she beats me I pay you a box of balls. How does that strike you?"

"Take him up, Mr. Smith," said Miss Harding, a smile on her lips and a meaning glance in her eyes. I would not have hesitated had I known it would have cost me every dollar in the world.

"You are on, Mr. Harding," I said.

"We'll teach you a good lesson, Papa Harding," she declared, with a confidence which surprised me. "You have never seen me play."

He roared with laughter.

"Talk about David and Goliath!" he exclaimed. "Tell you what I'll do, Kid. I'll make you a small bet on the side. You remember that sixty horse-power buzz wagon we were looking at in the city the other day?"

"The one in red that I admired so much?" asked Miss Harding.

"Yes, the one you tried to soft soap me into buying. Tell you what I'll do. If you beat me I'll buy that machine for you, and if I beat you I get a new hat which you pay for out of your pin money."

"It's a shame to take advantage of you, papa, dear," she hesitated, "but I want that machine awfully, and I'll make the wager."



"If you never get it until you beat me at this shinny game you will wait a long time," he declared. "Who shoots first?"

"Miss Harding and I will be partners," suggested Carter, before I could get the words out of my mouth.

"Since I am interested in Miss Harding's play to the extent of a box of balls a stroke, I claim the right to act as her partner and adviser," I said, looking hard at Carter.

"Mr. Smith and I will be partners," said Miss Harding, and it was the happiest moment of my life.

"I don't care who are partners," said Harding, stepping up to the tee. "I'll shoot first, and you keep your eye on your Uncle Dudley!"

He piled up a hill of sand, gripped his club like grim death, drew back, swung with all his might—and missed the ball by three inches.

"One stroke!" laughed Miss Harding.

"That don't count!" he declared. "I didn't hit the blamed thing at all! Look at it! It's just where I fixed it a minute ago. Don't cheat, Kid!"

"A missed ball counts a stroke," laughed Carter.

"Are you sure that's the rule?"

We all assured him there was not the slightest doubt of it.

"All that I can say is that it's a fool rule," he protested, "but at that, one missed swipe cuts little figure with me. Here goes for number two!"

"Don't press!" cautioned Carter.

"I'll press all I darned please. Keep your eyes on this one!"

He grazed the ball enough to make it roll not more than twenty feet into a clump of tall grass. He looked blankly at it, but did not say a word. Then he took a jack-knife from his pocket and cut two notches in the shaft of his club.

Carter drove out a good one, and I teed a ball for Miss Harding. The lane is about a hundred yards away, and I thought of advising her to play short, but on reflection determined not to embarrass her by suggestions so early in the game.

The moment she took her stance and grasped her club I noted a difference in her style of play as compared with that of the preceding day. Her club head came back with a free, even curve, and on the return she caught the ball with a good though not perfect follow through. The ball carried straight and true over the lane, and did not stop rolling until it had passed the 130-yard mark. It was a nice clean drive, and I smiled my approval.

"Good work, Kid," grinned Harding, but he did not seem the least dismayed. I should not care to play poker with him. I lined out a beauty, and then Harding returned to the attack.

It took two strokes to get his ball out of the grass. On his fifth shot the ball had a good lie about ten yards from the lane fence. He smashed at it with a brassie, but drove too low. The ball hit a fence post and bounded back fully seventy-five yards. In five strokes he had not gained a foot. After a combination of weird and wonderful shots he reached the green in twelve.

Harding's putting was a revelation in how not to drop a ball in a cup. He went back and forth over the hole like a shuttle. This performance added six to his score, and he holed out in nineteen. He was fighting mad, but did not say a word. While the rest of us were holing out he sullenly added seventeen notches to his club.

I was astonished and pleased at the reversal in form shown by Miss Harding. Two iron shots laid her ball on the green, her approach was a little weak, and she missed an easy two-foot putt, but she made the hole in seven, which is not at all bad for a woman. Carter and I both got fours.

When Harding finally got his ball out of the old graveyard in playing the second hole there was a dispute as to how many strokes he had taken. I counted twelve, but he claimed only nine, and we let him have his own way about it. I did not dare to dispute with him, fearing that he might have a stroke of apoplexy. He marked eleven new notches on his club shaft for this hole.

He made a fair drive over the marsh on his third hole, flubbed his second and third shots, but his fourth was a screaming brassie which landed him on the green within two inches of the cup. It was one of those freak shots which a man makes once a season, but Harding took vast credit for it and was the happiest person on the links over his bogy five for this long hole.

Miss Harding was playing like a veteran. This hole is 355 yards from the tee, but she was well on the green on her third, and holed out in six. Carter did the same, but I got a five and saved the hole for our side.

I do not know how to account for Miss Harding's improved playing. It was not in the least like that of the day when we were alone. For the entire eighteen holes she played steady, consistent golf. It was not brilliant, but it was a creditable exhibition for a woman. She kept on the course, missed only two drives, and rarely failed to get distance and direction.

Not until we had played half-way around and Harding was hopelessly behind did he give voice to his amazement.

"This is the time you have got the old man down and out, Kid," he said, after she had made the ninth hole in four to his fourteen. "I'll admit that there is a trick about this game that I'm not on to, but you just wait; you just wait. I seem to hit 'em all right, but confound 'em, they don't go right. I don't understand it. I'd have bet a million dollars against a perfecto cigar that I could drive a ball farther than a 125-pound girl, even if she is my daughter."

"We will call our bet off, Mr. Harding," I suggested, satisfied that we had tumbled him from the pedestal reared by his conceit.

"We'll call nothing off," he promptly declared. "Soak it to me as hard as you can; I'll get even with all of you before the season's over."

No language can describe the game played by the railway magnate. His miserable playing was supplemented by worse luck. A predatory cow swallowed his ball. He drove another one into the crotch of a tree, hit Carter in the shin, broke a window in the club house, tore his trousers, sprained his thumb, and poisoned his hands with ivy while searching for a lost ball. He conversed much with himself when Miss Harding was not near.

The nicks in his club by which he kept score became so numerous, and they so weakened the shaft, that he finally broke it; also one of the commandments.

The story of his calamities and of his undoing is feebly indicated by his score, which was as follows:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Out— 19 11 5 7 12 9 8 16 14—101 In—- 8 6 10 5 7 7 11 5 12— 71 —- Total —172

Miss Harding made it in 116, and with a reasonable amount of luck I am sure she would have done much better. I played a rattling good game, completing the round in 80, which is the best score I have made this season.

I put it all over Carter, who had made me a side bet of the dinners for the four of us that his individual score would be better than mine.

Miss Harding won an automobile which will cost not less than $15,000; I won fifty-six dozen golf balls, enough to last me two years; Carter lost a dinner which I thoroughly enjoyed, and Mr. Harding lost his temper, but I will give him credit for finding it the moment the game was over.

He laughed as if it were the greatest joke in the world.

"You threw me down, Kid," he said to Miss Harding, "but I'll forgive you. You get the buzz wagon and Smith gets a cartload of balls, but I'll tell you one thing, and that is this: I'm going to learn how to hit one of those blamed balls in the nose every time I swipe at it, even if I have to resign the presidency of the R.G. & K. railroad."

I can see that the golf microbe has marked him for a shining victim.



ENTRY NO. IX

MR. SMITH GETS BUSY

I have had to neglect my golf and attend to business. For nearly a week I have not seen Miss Harding. And all on account of that miserable N.O. & G. stock.

Early in the week it dropped to more than ten points below the figure at which I purchased it. This meant a loss of $20,000.

Tuesday morning I called on my broker and he informed me that if N.O. & G. dropped two more points he would have to call on me for margins. There were rumours, he said, that it would pass its next dividend, or at least reduce it. Then I got busy.

I called on Jones, the kind friend who steered me against this investment. Jones informed me that certain powerful banking interests were raiding the stock. He could not identify them, and I saw that he knew nothing about it.

"We are the lambs, Smith," he sadly said. "I'm in for a thousand shares myself."

"They have not an ounce of my fleece yet," I declared, and turned and left him.

I served two years on Wall Street under my father, and there was no streak of mutton in him. It made me furious to think that I should be made to "hold the bag" for a lot of unscrupulous tricksters.

I set about ascertaining the exact status of the business of the N.O. & G. In my search for information I was thwarted again and again, but I do not think it was entirely luck which led me to solve the mystery to my personal satisfaction. I employed detectives to assist me, and in four days had the information on which to act.

It is as neat a conspiracy as ever was hatched by financial brigands, but I think I know every tree behind which they are hid. It is probable that they are within the pale of the written law, but one would have the same right to operate in gold bricks or green goods.

It may be that the action I have taken will spell my financial ruin, but I propose to ascertain if a gentleman cannot take a modest flyer in Wall Street without being marked as "a come-on," which is the term used by those who rig the market.

If they get me it will be not for $20,000 but for $2,000,000. I propose to make the fight of my life. I wonder what Miss Harding would think if she knew I were engaged in a deal of this magnitude?

On Thursday I instructed my business agents to convert certain negotiable assets into cash, and to arrange for an extension of my credit with the banks. I now propose to follow N.O. & G. to the bottom—if there be one—and if not I shall drop with my money into the fathomless void of bankruptcy.

I called on my broker.

"I wish to get out," I said to him. "I will take my losses. This has been an expensive experience to me."

"I do not imagine, Mr. Smith," he said, "that the loss of $23,000 will seriously cripple you or disturb your serenity."

I made a gesture of despair.

"If that were all I would not give it a thought," I said. He looked at me curiously.

"I hope that you are not long on this stock to any great extent," he said.

"I should have said nothing about it," I returned, looking as distressed as possible. "Please make no inference from my remark, and keep this transaction entirely an office secret."

"It is not necessary to caution me," he quickly said.

The financial papers that evening recorded a rumour to the effect that "The son of a late well-known banker and operator is said to be heavily long on N.O. & G., and the slump in that stock during the closing hours was probably due to his frantic efforts to close out an account estimated at 20,000 shares."

I wonder where that rumour originated. This is the way secrets are kept in Wall Street.

Prior to this I had commissioned Morse & Davis, brokers in whom I have implicit confidence, to purchase 5,000 shares of the stock at or below 75. I obtained 79 for my original investment, and its sale combined with the circulation of the rumour before mentioned precipitated a flurry in N.O. & G. which sent it as low as 74 and a fraction.



Before the market closed I had my five thousand shares.

Friday morning selling orders poured in from frightened small holders, and when their demands had been satisfied the "syndicated conspirators" put the screws on just as I expected. They also circulated an alleged authorised interview with an official of the N.O. & G. forecasting the passing of the regular semi-annual dividend.

Had I not been acquainted with the plans of these quotation wreckers I should have been seriously alarmed.

When the tape recorded a sale at 70 I placed an order with Morse & Davis for 10,000 shares, and they picked it up in small lots at an average of 69. It rose slightly on Saturday, and I did nothing with it.

I have put up in margins $375,000, sufficient to protect me against a drop of twenty-five points. I stand to lose $1,975,000, and know where I can place my hands on the money. I anticipate that the stock will go much lower, and have planned accordingly. My share of my lamented father's estate is worth fully two and a half millions, and it is in such shape that I can speedily convert it into cash. If these thieves can get it they are welcome to it, but they will know that they have been in a fight.

The transition from the healthy quiet of Woodvale to the feverish furore of Wall Street was startling. At times as I stood by the ticker I could hardly persuade myself that it was not a dream, from which I should awake to stroll with Miss Harding across the brooks and green meadows we both love so well.

My prolonged absence from the links created some comment, so I am told, but no questions were asked and I volunteered no information. I have arranged matters so that it will not be necessary to spend much of my time in the city, unless something unexpected develops.

I have lost no sleep, but my golf this afternoon was disappointing.

I required eighty-nine for the round and lost seven golf balls to Chilvers and Boyd. This will never do![1]

[Footnote 1: NOTE BY THE EDITOR.—From the foregoing it appears that Mr. Smith's stock transactions up to this date have involved a net loss of about $51,000, with a probability of a continuance of the decline during the coming week. Under these circumstances it would seem that he attaches undue importance to the loss of seven golf balls, which I am informed, may be purchased at the standard price of fifty cents apiece.

Possibly this criticism may be impeached by those familiar with the ethics and peculiarities of golf, a game of which my knowledge is purely academic.]

On the table in front of me stands the finest golf trophy which ever delighted the eye of a devotee of the game. It is the bronze figure of a player whose mashie is in the position of that valuable iron club at the end of a short approach. It is the work of a French sculptor, and in design and execution it is nothing short of an inspiration. The position of the feet, body, arms, and shoulders, the expression of the face and eyes; all these details are perfect.

The figure is twenty-four inches in height and is mounted on an ebony pedestal.

Mr. Harding has given this magnificent bronze to the club, and it is in my keeping, as chairman of the Greens Committee. It will be presented to the winner of this year's championship of Woodvale by Miss Grace Harding, and I have posted an announcement of the conditions of the competition. It is open to all members, sixteen best scores to qualify, and then match play of eighteen holes, with thirty-six for the finals. The tournament starts a week from Tuesday.

Between watching Wall Street and getting in shape for this competition I am likely to have a busy week.

Mr. Harding called me into his apartments yesterday evening, displayed this gem of a bronze, and told me how he came to acquire it.

"It was the Kid's suggestion, but I endorsed it in a minute," he said, passing a box of cigars. "We were prowling around the jewelry haunts, Grace and I, seeing what she could flim-flam me into buying for her, when we ran across this thing. She thought it was great. I looked it over and saw that this bronze gentleman does not hold his club the way I do, and was in favour of letting him wait for another owner. Then she suggested that it would be a great scheme to buy it and give it to the club. I thought it over a minute and decided that it might be a good idea, and so I bought it, and here it is. Now you boys will have to scrap it out among yourselves, and may the best one win."

"This is the finest trophy ever offered to the club," I said, "and on behalf of the members I wish to thank you as donor and Miss Harding as the instigator."

"I'll create enough trouble around here to work out any indebtedness you fellows owe me for that gee-gaw," he laughed. "I've had an awful time since you have been down town, Smith. I reckon I've ploughed up as much turf as Jim Bishop did all last spring. Speaking of Bishop, did you know we're invited over to his place Monday evening?"

"I had not heard of it," I said.

"Well, we are," he said. "There's going to be great doings day after to-morrow night. Bishop's new red barn is finished, and a bunch of us are going over to dinner and then participate in the dance. Let's go down stairs and hunt up Grace and Carter and constitute the four of us a committee on arrangements and invitation. Grace talked to Bishop more than I did and she knows all about it."

We found Miss Harding, Miss Lawrence, LaHume, and Carter on the veranda, and decided to enlarge the committee to six. Miss Harding said Mr. Bishop intimated he should expect about a dozen of us.

"Well, let's see," figured Mr. Harding, and I felt in my bones he would make a mess of it. "Get out your pencil, Smith, and take us down as I give the names. There's Ma Harding and me, that's two; there's Carter and Grace makes four; LaHume and his sweetheart makes six; then there's——"

"Mr. LaHume and whom?" interrupted Miss Lawrence, her cheeks red and her eyes snapping fire. The grin on LaHume's face died out.

"Why, LaHume and——"

"You've gone far enough," laughed Miss Harding. "Let me help you out, papa. We will select the gentlemen first. Please take down this list, Mr. Smith. Suppose we name Mr. LaHume, Mr. Carter, Mr. Marshall, Mr. Chilvers, Mr. Smith, and Papa Harding. Then there's Miss Lawrence, Miss Ross, Mrs. Marshall, Mrs. Chilvers, Mamma, and myself. That makes twelve."

"Those were the ones I was going to name when you stopped me," declared Mr. Harding, who pretended to be much puzzled, but who knew full well what was the matter. He gave me a quiet nudge with his elbow, and then went on to say that the twelve of us would dine with the Bishops at six o'clock, and stay to the dance which would start as soon as it was dark. It ought to be great fun.

I wish I knew if Miss Harding resented the coupling of her name with Carter. I watched both of them closely, but neither gave a sign.

Chilvers tells me that Carter and Miss Harding have played several games together during the past week, and I assured him that the fact possessed not the slightest interest to me. Chilvers pretends to think it does, and seems to take much delight in harping on that subject.

As a matter of curiosity I should like to know when and where Carter first met the Hardings. Once or twice I have thrown out a hint to Carter, but he has not said a word.

Carter is a good-looking chap, and I think he knows it. The fond mammas here in the club consider him a catch. I am not exactly a pauper myself, but I may be if this N. O. & G. deal goes against me.

I wonder how it would seem to be poor? I wonder if Miss Harding would care to play golf with me if she knew I had to work for a living? I wonder what I would work at?

I dreamed last night that N.O. & G. stock went down and down until it was worth less than nothing, and that I had lost every dollar in the world and owed several millions.

It was an awful dream. I was in jail for a time, and when they let me out I did not have the car fare to get back to Woodvale. I walked all the way, and was chased by dogs. When I got here, the steward presented my bill, which amounted to several hundred dollars. I told him I could not pay it, and he marked my name off the membership list. I met Carter and several others and they would not speak to me. I was dying from hunger, and looked longingly at the remnants of a steak left by Chilvers, but one of the servants told me to move on.

Then the scene changed, as things move in dreams, and I was at work on Bishop's farm. I was cutting and shocking corn, and the boss of the hired help swore because I was so slow. My hands were bleeding from scratches where the sharp edges of the bayonet-like blades had cut them, and I was so hungry and tired that I was ready to lie down and die. My wages were fifteen dollars a month, and every cent of it had been levied against by my Wall Street creditors. Not until I was seventy years old would any of the money I earned be coming to me. The other hired men looked on me as a weakling, and laughed at the torn golf suit in which I was clothed.

I was happy when I awoke and realised it was only a nightmare.

I raised the curtain so as to let in the cool air. The links were bathed in a flood of moonlight. Half a mile away were Bishop's cornfields in which the dreamland fiends had tortured me. It was not yet midnight, and down the lane I made out the forms of Chilvers, Marshall, Lawson, and other nighthawks. Chilvers was singing, the others coming in the chorus of the last line, drawing it out to the full length and strength of a parody of the old negro song:

"Where, oh where are the long, long drivers? Where, oh where are the long, long drivers?; Where, oh where are the long, long drivers? 'Way down yander in the corn field."



ENTRY NO. X

THE TWO GLADIATORS

There was little doing in N.O. & G. stock on Monday or Tuesday. It dropped off a point and then recovered. I told my brokers to pick up 10,000 shares at or below 65. I am confident it will strike that figure before the end of the week.

It was nearly five o'clock before we started up the lane toward Bishop's. We were delayed half an hour waiting for Marshall, but, knowing his weakness, we fixed the time of departure half an hour sooner than necessary.

If Marshall's hope for eternal salvation depended on applying at the pearly gates at a specified time, he would spend eternity in the other place on account of being thirty minutes late. Knowing this to be his habit, we always provide against it. If the club house ever catches on fire, we shall lose Marshall, and he is a splendid good fellow.

Marshall's wife informs me it took him thirty weeks to propose after he had made up his mind to do so, and that after the wedding day was set it was necessary to postpone the ceremony thirty days in order to permit him to attend to some trifling business affairs. We call him "Thirty" Marshall, and it takes him thirty seconds to smile in appreciation of the jest. But he plays a good game of golf, with at least four deliberate practise swings before each stroke at the ball.

Chilvers wanted to have a team hitched up and ride over in the club bus. He said it tired him to walk. We vetoed that proposition, and Chilvers stopped twice to rest on the half-mile jaunt to Bishop's.

Chilvers thinks nothing of playing twice around Woodvale, a distance of not less than ten miles, but when in the city he takes a cab or a street car when compelled to go a few blocks. When there is no ball ahead of him he is the most fatigued man of my acquaintance, but he can stride over golf links from daybreak until it is so dark you cannot see the ball, and quit as fresh as when he started. There are others like Chilvers.

I walked with Mrs. Harding. I had a good chance to walk with Miss Harding, but wished to show Carter that it was a matter of indifference to me. More than that, it occurred to me it was not a bad plan to become better acquainted with Mrs. Harding.

The man who gets Mrs. Harding for a mother-in-law will be fortunate. None of the thrusts and jibes of the alleged funny men will apply to her as a mother-in-law.

One would not readily identify Mrs. Harding as the wife of a famous railway magnate. Wealth certainly has not turned her motherly head. Of course, she is a little woman. Huge men such as Harding invariably select dolls of women for helpmates. She is round, smiling, pretty, and thoughtful, and I like her immensely.

We were approaching the Bishop place. The orchard trees were covered with fruit. Some of the tomatoes showed the red of their fat cheeks through the green of their foliage. Miss Lawrence had started with LaHume, but under some pretext left him and was with Carter and Miss Harding, and I doubt if Carter was pleased with that evidence of his popularity. LaHume walked with Miss Ross and talked and laughed, but I could see he was angry.

It suddenly occurred to me that Miss Lawrence would probably meet Bishop's hired man, Wallace, and I presume LaHume was thinking of the same thing. It was apparent they had quarrelled over something.

Marshall and Chilvers were together, their wives trailing on behind, as usual. The way these two married men neglect these lovely women makes me angry every time I am out with them, but the ladies do not seem to care, and I presume it is none of my business.

Harding walked with everybody, and was happy as a lark. He threw stones at a telegraph pole, and was in ecstasy when a lucky shot shivered one of the glass insulators.

"How was that for a shot, mother?" he shouted, as the glass came flying down. "Hav'n't hit one of those since I was fourteen years old. Say, I wish I was fourteen years old now, barefooted, and sitting on the bank of that creek catching shiners."

"I wouldn't throw any more stones, Robert," Mrs. Harding said, laying her hand on his arm and looking up to his happy face. "The last time you threw stones you were lame for a week, and I had to rub you with arnica."

"But think of the fun I had," he said, and then he went back and told Marshall and Chilvers some yarn which must have been very amusing from the way they laughed.

I had been praising the beauties of the country around Woodmere, and asked Mrs. Harding how she liked the club house, and if she were enjoying her summer there.

"I would enjoy it much better," she said, "if I did not know that I should be home."

"I presume you feel that you are neglecting your social duties," I ventured.

"Social fiddlesticks," she laughed. "I should be home canning tomatoes and putting up fruit. We won't have a thing in the house fit to eat all next winter."

"But the servants," I began. "The servants——"

"If you knew as much about housekeeping as you do about golf," she said, "you would know that servants do not know how to preserve fruit. Last year I put up more than two hundred cans, and unless I can drag Mr. Harding away from here, it will be too late for everything except pears and quinces, and he does not care much for either."

Think of the wife of a multi-millionaire standing over a hot kitchen fire and preserving tomatoes, cherries, grapes, jams, jells, and all that kind of thing! I did not exactly know how to sympathise with her.

"It is nice down here," she said, after a pause, "but there's nothing to do."

"The drives are splendid," I said, "and I'm sure you would become interested in golf or tennis if you took them up."

"I mean that there's no work to do," she said. "I nearly had a row with my husband before he would let me darn his socks. He does not know it, but I keep the maid out of our rooms so that I can do the work myself. It's awful to sit around all day with nothing to do but read and do fancy work. I hate fancy work. If you have any socks which need darning, Mr. Smith, I wish you would let me have them."

We both laughed, but she was in earnest and made me promise I would turn over to her any socks which show signs of wear. I shall keep them as a memento.

That is the kind of a woman I should like for a mother-in-law.

And the more I see of Mr. Harding the better I like him. But I must record the many things which happened that afternoon and evening at Bishop's.

The fine old farmhouse is ideally located on a rising slope of ground. It is surrounded with the most beautiful grove of horse-chestnut trees in this section of the country.

The house is more than a hundred years old, and Bishop has the sense not to attempt an improvement in its exterior architecture. When a boy I spent most of my spare time in and around the Bishop house. Joe Bishop and I were chums, but when I went away to college, Joe wandered out West, and it is years since I have seen him. I have often thought that I must have been an awful source of bother to the Bishops, but they never seemed to mind it much. All of their children are grown up and married, but here the old folks are, working away as hard as when I was a child.

I suppose James Bishop is about Mr. Harding's age, somewhere between fifty and fifty-five. He in no way resembles the farmer of the cartoons. He wears a stubby moustache, and looks more the prosperous horseman than the typical farmer. He is a big man, a trifle taller than Mr. Harding, but not so broad of shoulder. Either of them would tip the beam at 230 pounds.

Bishop was at the gate waiting for us, and back of him two good-natured dogs bayed a noisy welcome.

"Come right in," he said, shaking hands with Harding. "If I'd known that you had to walk I'd hitched up a rig and come after ye. This is Mrs. Harding, I reckon," he said, grasping that lady's hand. "Glad to meet ye, Mrs. Harding! I knowed that thar husband of your'n when he wasn't bigger nor a pint of cider."



"Robert has often spoken of you, Mr. Bishop," said that lady. "How is Mrs. Bishop?"

"She's well; first-rate, thank ye. Come right in and we'll hunt her up," he said, leading the way. "I suppose she's puttering around in the kitchen."

I caught a glimpse of Mrs. Bishop through the window. She was hurriedly shedding a large calico apron, and met us as we were on the steps of the veranda. A woman trained in the conventionalities of society could not have conducted herself better than did this American wife of an American farmer, and I was proud of her as if she had been my own mother. She had the rare tact of making her guests feel perfectly at home.

Bishop had disappeared, but soon returned with an enormous glass pitcher and a tray of glasses.

"Here's some new sweet cider for the ladies," he said, pouring out a glass and handing it to Mrs. Harding. "Pressed it out this afternoon, and picked out the apples myself. Try some, Miss Harding. Here's a glass for you, Miss——, blamed if I hav'n't forgot your name already," proffering a glass to Miss Lawrence, "but we don't mind a little thing like that, do we."

"Indeed we do not," laughed Miss Lawrence.

"How about this?" demanded Chilvers. "What was that you said about cider for the ladies? My friend Marshall is dying for a drink, and my throat is as dusty as his boots. Do we walk two miles and then choke to death? We don't want to lose Marshall like this."

"You hold your horses a minute," grinned Bishop. "The ladies like sweet cider, God bless 'em, and I made this for them. If any of you fellows would like to try some real cider, the best that ever was raised in this State, come on and follow me. I reckon the ladies have seen all they want to of you for a while. Come on; I'll show you some cider that is cider."

He led us around the house until he came to a cellar door, which he threw back and we followed him. When our eyes became accustomed to the dim light we saw long rows of huge casks, mounted on frames so that the spigots were eighteen inches from the floor. The air was deliciously cool. It was permeated with the subtle odour of apple juice long confined in wood. Films of cobwebs softened the sharp lines of the cask heads and faintly gleamed between the rafters where the light struck them.

"Here's cider that is cider!" declared Bishop, proudly tapping on the heads of the great casks as he led the way into the darker recesses of the cellar. "I reckon, Bob," he said to Harding, "that it's a long time since you've had a chance to try a swig of real old Down East hard cider."

"It's been a long time, Jim," admitted Harding. "How old is this?"

"I've put in a cask every year since I took the place," he replied, "and that's more'n thirty years ago, and not a cask here but has cider in it."

"Cider thirty years old!" exclaimed Chilvers. "You mean vinegar, don't you?"

"I said cider, young man; an' when I say cider I mean cider," retorted Bishop, rather indignantly. "It is no more vinegar than brandy's vinegar, nor champagne's vinegar. Now, I don't reckon none of you, barring my old friend John Harding, here, ever tasted a drop of real hard cider. Oh, yes, Smith has, of course; but how about the rest of ye?"

Carter, LaHume, Marshall, and Chilvers admitted that their idea of hard cider was a beverage which had started to ferment.

Bishop placed his hand reverently on a blackened, time-charred cask. It was evident he was as proud of that possession as others might be of an authenticated Raphael.

"I don't tap this here very often," he said, "but in honour of this occasion I'll let it run a bit. This here cider is fifty years old!"

He drew off a pint or so in a stone jug, and we went out into the light to examine it. It was almost colourless, slightly amber in shade, if any tint can describe it. I had seen that sacred cask when a boy, and I recall now that Joe Bishop did not dare touch it, and there were few things of which he was afraid.

We all solemnly sampled it from small glasses, which Bishop produced from some mysterious hiding place.

"There is no taste to it," declared Chilvers. "It's smooth as oil, but it has no flavour."

"Hasn't, eh?" smiled Bishop. "You just wait a minute and you'll get the bouquet—as you wine experts call it. It's one of these coming tastes, but when it hits you you cry for more."

It was as the farmer said. There came to our palates the subtle gustatory perfume of apple blossoms. Within the old cask there had been stored the fragrance and the spell of the orchard of half a century agone. It was the wine of the apple; the favoured fruit of the gods.

"Is it supposed to be intoxicating?" asked Marshall. Bishop laughed uproariously, and Harding joined in his merriment.

"My boy," Bishop said, "it's as intoxicating as the feel of your sweetheart's cheek against your own, only it affects you in a different way. I've known a man to fill up on that smooth-tastin' and innocent lookin' stuff an' not come tew until he was on shipboard, an' half way to Cape Horn. Under its influence the secretary of a peace society would tackle the Japanese navy in a rowboat. From what I know about mythology I'm sure Mars drank it regular."

Our host drew a generous allowance from a cask containing a more recent vintage, and led the way from out the old cellar to seats beneath the trees facing the smooth turf of an unused croquet ground.

LaHume wandered away in search of the ladies, whose laughter and chatter from the near-by veranda proved they were cheerfully enduring his absence. I caught a glimpse of Wallace as he drove the cows into the old barn, and wondered if LaHume seriously considered the "hired man" as a rival.

We filled our pipes and lay back in the comfortable seats, content to listen to the music of the birds overhead, and follow aimlessly the conversation between Bishop and Harding. The cider from the sacred cask had bridged the years which separated them from boyhood days back in Buckfield, Maine.

The old grindstone reminded Harding of an incident, to the telling of which both contributed details. They told of swimming exploits; of how they helped lock the school teacher out of the little red building which seemed to them a prison; they told of blood-curdling feats of coasting and of skating on thin ice, and of other things more or less distorted, perhaps, when seen through the haze of forty years.

Then they told of the boys they had "licked," and of the boys who had whipped them, also of the feud between the lads of Buckfield and Sumner and the desperate encounters which resulted from it.

"Do you remember, Bob," asked Bishop, after a moment's pause, "of that 'rasslin' match we had on the floor of your dad's barn?"

"The time I got a black eye, and you lost part of your ear?" asked Harding, his eyes brightening at thought of it.

"That's the time," declared Bishop. "I tore your clothes most to pieces."

"I don't remember about that," responded the railroad magnate, "but I do remember that I flopped you three times out of five."

"Three times outer nothin'!" exclaimed the farmer. "I put you down fair and square three times running, Bob, and if you'll stop and think a minute you'll recollect it."

"Recollect nothing!" defiantly laughed Harding. "You never saw the day in your life, when you or any boy in Buckfield could put my shoulders to the ground three times running. You're losing your memory, Jim."

"I did it all right."

"I say you didn't!"

"And I can do it again!"

"You can, eh?" shouted Harding, springing to his feet and pulling off his coat. "We'll mighty quick see if you can! I'll tackle you right here on this croquet ground!"

"Side holt, square holt, or catch-as-catch-can?" asked Bishop, casting one anxious look towards the house.

"We always rassled catch-as-catch-can, and you know it," declared Harding. "I suppose you think just because I do nothing but build railroads and things that I've grown effeminate since you tackled me the last time. Come on; I'll show you!"

"I'm afraid I'll hurt you, Bob," said Bishop, and I could see that he honestly meant it. "I've been outer doors all my life, an' you've been——"

"I suppose you think I've been in an incubator, don't ye?" snorted Harding. "Don't weaken! Don't be a coward, Jim! There's the line; toe it!" and he marked a crease in the soft turf.

"You bet I'll toe it!" growled the now irate farmer. "And don't whimper if I break a bone or two when I flop ye!"

As Bishop threw his cap to the ground and rushed toward the defiant millionaire Carter saw fit to interfere.

"Don't do this," he protested, jumping between them. "One of you will get hurt! It's dangerous for men of your age to wrestle!"

Both of them reached out and brushed Carter away, and the next instant they were at it.

Bishop ducked and got an underhold, and I was sure Harding would go down, but he braced himself with his huge legs, and with the strength of a giant broke the clasp of his opponent's arms. It takes skill as well as muscle to do this, and I saw at a glance that Harding had not forgotten the tricks of his boyhood. As Bishop spun half-way around the other caught him at a disadvantage, raised him clear from the turf and dashed him down, falling with all his weight upon him.

It was as clean and quick a fall as I have seen, but for a second my heart stood still, fearing Bishop's neck had been broken. He gasped once or twice, and then I heard a muffled laugh.

"Let me up, Bob; that's one for you!" he said, and both struggled to their feet. There was a rent in the right knee of Harding's trousers, and his shirt was a sight, but he neither knew of this nor would have cared for it.

"Not quite so soft and easy as you thought I was eh, Jim?" he panted, extending his hand. "You got the holt all right, but you wasn't quick enough."

"I held you too cheap that time," admitted Bishop, rather sheepishly, throwing away a pair of ruined suspenders, "but I'll get you this time. Come on, Bob!"

"You referee this match, Smith!" said Harding, standing on guard. "You know the rules. No fall unless both shoulders and one hip is down."

Misfortune had taught Bishop caution. I could see he feared Harding's enormous strength and that he aimed to wind him if possible. He managed to elude the grasp of his antagonist for probably a minute, and more by luck than skill fell on top when the end of the clinch came. But Harding was not down by any means, and there then ensued a struggle which made me oblivious to all surroundings.

Though I was the referee I was "rooting" for Harding, and so was Carter, while Marshall and Chilvers were giving mental and vocal encouragement to Bishop. I do not suppose any of us realised we were saying a word.

First Harding would have a slight advantage, and then the tide would turn in favour of Bishop. The latter was more agile, but the former outclassed him in power. They writhed along that croquet ground like two gigantic tumble-bugs locked in a life and death struggle. Neither said a word, and both were absolutely fair in attack and defense. As the struggle continued it seemed to me that Harding was weakening, but he told me later he was merely resting for the effort which would insure him victory.

I heard the swish of skirts, the frightened cry of female voices, and the next instant two most estimable ladies invaded the improvised ring and laid hands on the principals.

I doubt if the combined physical exertion of Mrs. Bishop and Mrs. Harding could have made the slightest impress on the embrace which held their lords and masters, but what they said had a magical and peacemaking effect.

"James Bishop, you should be ashamed of yourself!" exclaimed Mrs. Bishop, tugging at the remnant of a shirt, which promptly detached itself from the general wreck.



"Robert Harding, what do you mean by fighting?" gasped Mrs. Harding, tugging at his undershirt, the outer garment long since having lost its entity.

Instantly they relaxed their holds, rolled over and came to a sitting posture, facing each other and their respective wives. It was as if the act had carefully been rehearsed, and was ludicrous beyond any description at my command.

Their glances rested for an instant on one another, and then on their frightened and indignant helpmates. Their attitude was that of two schoolboys detected by their teachers in some forbidden act. I am sure Harding would have spoken sooner if he could have recovered his breath.

"We're not fighting, my dear!" he managed to say. "Are we, Jim?" he added with a mighty effort.

"Of course not," declared Bishop, gouging a piece of turf from his eye. "We're only rasslin'; that's all, isn't it, Bob?"

"And you in your best suit of clothes, James Bishop!" exclaimed his good wife.

"You should see how you look, Mr. Harding," added his better half with justifiable emphasis. "Are you hurt?" anger changing to solicitude.

"Of course I'm not hurt," he asserted. "We were only fooling. Where in thunder is my shirt?"

And then Chilvers and Carter and Marshall and I exploded. It was not a dignified thing to do, and I apologised to both of the ladies afterward, but we fell down on that mutilated croquet-ground and laughed until exhausted. I am glad Miss Harding and the others were not there.

Assisted by their wives the two gladiators had struggled to their feet, but the most cursory inspection disclosed that they were more presentable when on the ground. And then the ladies joined in the laugh.

"Jack," said Mr. Bishop, who has called me by that nickname since I was seven years old, "Jack, go out to the old barn and get a pair of horse blankets. You know where I keep them."

"You've got a great head on you, Jim," roared Harding. "I was thinking of a pair of barrels."

When I returned with the red and yellow blankets the ladies had disappeared.

"Never mind sending down to the club for your other clothes," Bishop was saying. "I've got several suits, such as they are, and I reckon one of them will fit ye."

"This blanket is pretty good," declared the magnate. "Say, Jim, what was it you said about that fifty-year-old cider?"

"I'm glad I didn't give you any more of it; I'd lost my life as well as my clothes," declared the farmer. "If they'd stayed away 'nother minute or so I'd won that second fall, sure as sin, Bob," he said, rather ruefully, as we wrapped the blanket around him.

"You just think you would," grinned Harding, lifting up the blanket so as to keep from stumbling over it. "Say, it must be tough to have to wear skirts all the time. Be a good fellow, Smith, and hold up my train."

They tried to sneak in at the back entrance, but Miss Harding and the others saw them and headed them off. I shall never forget their looks of amazement, and then the screams of laughter which followed the hurried explanation.

I must postpone an account of the dinner and the dance until the next entry.



ENTRY NO. XI

THE BARN DANCE

We gave Mr. Harding a great reception when he appeared on the veranda, arrayed in garments furnished by our host. I have an idea Mr. Bishop's wardrobe was about exhausted when the two of them had completed their toilet.

"What do you think of me?" demanded Harding, striking a pose.

He obtained a variety of opinions. They were unable to find a "boiled shirt" with an eighteen inch neck band or collar, so a blue gingham one was made to do service. The only coat broad enough across the shoulders was a "Prince Albert," in which Bishop had been married, and Harding admitted the combination was not exactly de rigeur. The trousers were woefully tight at the waist, and were inches too long.

"You are lucky to get anything," declared Mrs. Harding, retying the wonderful red and yellow scarf and vainly attempting to smooth out some of the wrinkles in the coat. "You should be made to go home and to bed without your supper."

"You surely are the real goods, Governor," said Chilvers, walking about him and inspecting his costume from all angles. "What show have Marshall and the rest of us at to-night's dance against you?"



Miss Lawrence pinned a bunch of nasturtiums on his coat, and we all stood and hilariously admired him. Bishop called him aside and motioned me to join them.

"Mother and I don't know what to do about Wallace," our host said, after hesitating a moment. "He's our hired man, you know," he added.

"What about him?" asked Harding.

"He's always eaten with us," Bishop said. "He's a quiet, well-behaved sorter chap, and he's company for us, but mother is afraid it wouldn't be just the thing to have him at the table when company's here, and so I thought I'd ask you and Jack. We don't have folks here very often, and I wanter do what's right."

"You have him sit right down with us," promptly advised Harding. "If there's anybody in this country who has a right to eat good and plenty it's a hired man. If any of our folks don't like it, let them wait until the second table."

That settled it, and I could see that Bishop was pleased over the outcome.

"I sorter hated to tell Wallace to wait," he said to me after Harding had turned away. "It might offend him. He's a queer fish, but has the makings of the best hired man in the county."

When we entered the big dining-room Wallace was sitting in one corner reading. He laid aside the book, arose and bowed slightly. Harding went right up to him.

"Mr. Wallace, I believe," he said, shaking hands. "My name's Harding, and I'll introduce you to the rest of us." And he did.

This young Scotchman is a handsome chap. His features are those of Byron in his early manhood. His hair is dark and wavy as it falls back from a smooth high forehead. He is tall, broad of shoulder and singularly easy and graceful in his movements. He certainly looks like a man who has seen better days.

I am still inclined to my original opinion that he is some college chap who is trying to get a financial start so as to enter on his chosen profession.

He sat opposite me, and not until the first course was served did I notice that he was to the right of Miss Lawrence, with LaHume to her left. When I first observed this trio Miss Lawrence and Wallace already were engaged in a spirited conversation—or, more properly speaking, Miss Lawrence was.

There was a babble of voices and of laughter, and I could make out little they were saying during the early part of the dinner, though I was so impolite as to attempt to do so. Miss Lawrence was praising the scenic beauties of Woodvale and its environs, he adding a word or a sentence now and then with the tact of one pleased to listen to the chatter of a charming companion. The trace of Scotch in his enunciation was so slight as to defy reproduction, but it was sufficient to stamp the place of his nativity.

LaHume made several attempts to join in their conversation, and though Wallace lent him all possible aid Miss Lawrence effectually discouraged LaHume's participation. He reminded me of a boy making ineffectual attempts to "catch on behind" a swift-moving sleigh, and who is finally tumbled on his head for his pains.

Mrs. Bishop is famous the country round as a cook, and she excelled herself that afternoon. Bishop is a crank on truck gardening, and the vegetables served would have taken prizes in any exhibit. A delicious soup was followed by a baked sea trout—I must not forget to ask Mrs. Bishop how she made that sauce.

I wonder why it is that the most skilled hotel chefs cannot fry spring chicken so as to faintly imitate the culinary wonders attained by a capable housewife?

"I want to ask you a question, Mrs. Bishop," said Mr. Harding, after he had made a pretense of refusing a third helping of fried chicken. "Did you really raise these chickens on this farm?"

Mrs. Bishop smiled and said they did.

"I don't believe it," he returned. "If the truth were known they lit down here from heaven, and Jim Bishop nailed them and you cooked them."

I was ashamed of Chilvers. He ate seven ears of green corn and boasted of it, but I will admit I did not know it was possible to produce corn such as was served at that farmhouse dinner. The crisp sliced cucumbers, the ice-cold tomatoes, the succulent hearts of lettuce, the steaming dishes of string beans, summer squash, and green peas—it makes me hungry as I write of that simple but excellent feast.

I thought as we sat there of the democracy of that little gathering. There was Harding, the multi-millionaire railway magnate, in his hickory shirt; the fastidious and monocled Carter with his wealth and boasted New England ancestry; Miss Lawrence, an heiress in whose veins flowed the purest blood of the southern aristocracy; Mr. and Mrs. Bishop, plain honest folk from 'way down east in Maine; and the unknown Wallace, driven no doubt by stress of poverty from the hills of his beloved country—there we all were meeting one another as equals, enjoying the bounties Nature has so lavishly bestowed on her children.

I caught Miss Harding's eye, and she smiled as if in sympathy with my wandering thoughts. It takes a remarkably pretty young woman to lose none of her charm while eating green corn off the cob, but Miss Harding triumphantly stands that test. She was talking to Marshall, who is so constitutionally slow that he is invariably half a course behind everyone else at a table.

Marshall was attempting to explain to Miss Harding how it is possible to hook a ball and play off the right foot. He laid out a diagram on the table cloth, using "lady-fingers" to show the positions of the feet, a round radish to indicate the ball, and a fruit knife to illustrate the face and direction of the club.

Chilvers watched this most unconventional dinner performance with a grin on his face, and just as Marshall was showing just how the club should follow through, Chilvers called "Fore!" in a sharp tone. Miss Harding and Marshall were so absorbed in the elucidation of this most difficult golf problem that they instinctively dodged, and when Miss Harding recovered, her cheeks were delightfully crimson.

I never noticed until that moment that there are traces of dimples in her cheeks. Unless Venus had dimples she had no just claim to be crowned the goddess of love and beauty.

"Jim," said Mr. Harding, addressing our host, when coffee was served, "did you know our friend Smith when he was a kid?"

"Knew him when he couldn't look over this table," replied Mr. Bishop.

"What kind of a boy was he?"

"Full of the Old Nick, like most healthy boys," he answered. "He and my boy Joe went to school together, got into trouble together and got out of it again. What was it the boys used to call you, Jack?" he said to me, a twinkle in his eye.

"Never mind," I said, and attempted to turn the conversation, but it was no use.

"They used to call him 'Socks Smith,'" said Bishop. "That was it, 'Socks Smith.' I hadn't thought of it in years."

"What an alliterative nickname," laughed Mrs. Chilvers. "How did you ever acquire it, Mr. Smith?"

"He won't tell ye," declared my tormentor, without waiting for me to say a word, "but it's nothin' to his discredit. You know that mill pond where—"

"Don't tell that incident," I protested.

"Tell it! Tell it, Mr. Bishop!" pleaded Miss Lawrence, Miss Harding, and others in chorus.

"Sure I'll tell it," continued Bishop. "As I was saying, you all know the mill pond where you folks try to drive golf balls over. Well, it uster be bigger an' deeper than it is now, and in the winter it was the skating place for all the lads in the neighbourhood. Up at the far end there is a spring, and even in the coldest weather it don't freeze over above that spring."

"One bitter cold day—and it never gets cold enough to keep boys off smooth ice—young Smith, here—he was about twelve or fourteen years old at that time—was out on the ice with his skates on, wrapped up in an overcoat, a comforter over his ears and thick mittens on his hands, skatin' around that pond with my boy Joe and other lads, all of them thinkin' they was havin' the time of their lives. Mother, what was the name of that poor family that lived over in the old Bobbins' house at the time?"

"Andersons," said Mrs. Bishop.

"That's right; Andersons," continued the Boswell of my infantile exploits. "Well, these Andersons were so poor they didn't have any skates, but some of the boys had let them take a sled, and two of these little Anderson kids were slidin' around on the ice and havin' all the fun they could, even if they didn't have skates. I suppose their toes was as cold and their noses as blue, and that's half of skatin' or sleighin'."

"Smith, Joe, and the other skaters were on the southwest end of the pond playin' 'pigeon goal,' and these poor Anderson kids were slidin' around up at the other end where they would be out of the way. The wind was blowin' pretty hard, and I suppose they were careless; anyhow a gust struck them and swept them along into that air hole."

"They yelled as best they could, and some boys who were near them hollered, and the boys who were skating heard them and came tearing along to see what was the matter. Jack Smith, here, was fixing a strap or somethin', and was the last one to get started. The whole bunch of them were standin' 'round watching those poor Anderson kids drown, so scared they didn't know what to do. The poor little tots were hanging onto the sled right out in the middle of an open space about thirty yards wide."



"Jack, here, never stopped a second. He saw what was up as he came skatin' along, and he legged it all the harder, and in he went—skates, overcoat, comforter, mittens and all. It's no easy job swimmin' with such an outfit, to say nothin' of rescuin' two half-drowned youngsters, and I don't know how he did it, and I don't reckon you do either, Jack. But anyhow, he got to them, paddled along to the edge of the ice, and held on to them until the other boys pushed out boards and finally got the whole caboodle of 'em up on solid ice."

"Bully for you, Smith!" exclaimed Chilvers, "didn't know it was in you."

"Mr. Chilvers is jealous of you," declared Miss Lawrence. "I think it was real heroic."

"So do I," asserted Miss Harding, "but I cannot imagine how you acquired so absurd a nickname as 'Socks Smith' from that incident."

"Was the water cold?" asked Marshall.

"I hav'n't finished my story," said Mr. Bishop, after these and other comments had-been made. "I reckon the water was some cold, and the air colder; at any rate I happened along in my wagon just as they were draggin' them out, and before I could get them up to Smith's father's house the whole bunch of them was frozen so stiff that I had to pack 'em into the kitchen like so much cordwood."

"But boys of that age are tough, and when they had been thawed out, boiled in hot baths, and blistered with mustard poultices they was as good as new, and I reckon the Anderson kids was a mighty sight cleaner than they had been since the last time they went in swimmin'."

"Now, as I said before, these Andersons were desperate poor, but they were good folks, and what you might call appreciative. Jack had saved the lives of two of the family, and they wanted to show what they thought of him in some way or other. There was twelve children in the Anderson family, six boys and six girls, and the older girls and the old lady went to work, and blamed if they didn't knit a dozen pair of woollen socks and sent them to Jack as a Christmas present."

"And that is how Jack got the name of 'Socks Smith,'" concluded Mr. Bishop, when the laughter had subsided. "For riskin' his life he got all those nice warm socks and a nickname that uster make him so darned mad that I suppose he's had a hundred fights on account of it, and I'm not certain he won't poke me in the jaw when he gets me alone for tellin' this yarn on him."

"This darned woollen yarn," observed Marshall.

"You're all right, Socks," declared Chilvers. "I only wish I could get as good a press agent as our friend Bishop. When I was a kid I used to push 'em into the pond and run, and let someone else fish them out."

"If a man were to do an act as brave as that," asserted Miss Harding, "the world would acclaim him a hero, and not pile ridicule on him."

"All of which proves that no boy is a hero to another boy," commented Mr. Harding, "and that is as it should be. Boys get their heroes out of books, and as a rule they are fighters and pirates rather than of the self-sacrificing type."

I was glad when Miss Lawrence changed the topic of conversation.

"What do you think?" she exclaimed, addressing no one in particular, "I have discovered that Mr. Wallace knows how to play golf, and that he learned the game on some of the famous old courses of Scotland. He has promised to teach me the St. Andrews swing."

LaHume's face was a study as Miss Lawrence made this rather startling announcement. Surprise, disgust, and anger were reflected in his eyes and in the lines of his mouth.

"You have played St. Andrews?" asked Carter of Wallace.

"Yes, many a time," said this remarkable "hired man." "I was born hard-by the old town," he added.

"Indeed?" sneered LaHume. "What were you while there; caddy or professional?"

I thought I detected a flash of anger in the eyes of the young Scotchman, but if offended he controlled himself admirably. Not so with Miss Lawrence, who glared indignantly at LaHume.

"I doubt if I knew enough of the game," said Wallace, quietly, "to be either. I merely played there and at other places when I had the opportunity."

"Mr. Wallace says that St. Andrews does not compare with some of the newer links in Scotland," declared Miss Lawrence, ignoring LaHume.

"Which ones, for instance?" asked Carter, who has played over most of the fine courses in Great Britain.

"Muirfield and Prestwick offer better golf than St. Andrews, and are not so crowded," replied Wallace. "The farther you get from St. Andrews the greater its reputation, but it is too rough for perfect golf. A long, straight drive is often penalised by a bad lie, and an indifferent shot favoured by a good one, which is more luck than golf."

Carter smiled, and he afterwards told me it struck him as odd that a farmhand should converse in such words and on so peculiar a topic. Wallace good-naturedly and modestly answered a number of questions, but evaded telling the class of his game.

I wonder where Miss Lawrence will receive those lessons which will enable her to acquire the "St. Andrews swing"? I doubt if our rules will permit this remarkable farm labourer to play over Woodvale, even as the guest or at the request of Miss Lawrence. I shall watch developments with much interest.

Wallace asked to be excused, observing with a laugh that it was milking time, and a few minutes later we saw him pass the window, clad in blue overalls and a "jumper."

"Tell you what I'll do with you, LaHume," said Chilvers, who never misses an opportunity to stir up trouble. "I'll bet you a box of Haskells that our Scotch friend, who is now out there milking, can outdrive you twenty yards, and I never saw him with a club in his hands."

"I am not his rival in that or in any other capacity," warmly declared LaHume.

At this instant our hostess arose, giving the signal that the dinner was ended, and we adjourned to the lawn. LaHume said something to Miss Lawrence; she laughed scornfully, and left him and joined Miss Harding.

After cigars and pipes we inspected the new red barn. It is a huge structure, modern in every particular, and Bishop was properly proud of it. The lofts were partially filled with sweet clover hay, and the odour combined with that of the new pine lumber was delicious. The floor had been planed smooth, and oiled and waxed so as to make an excellent space for dancing. The uprights were twined with ivy and decorated with wild flowers, and the effect was pleasing.

The guests were already arriving in all sorts of vehicles, from farm wagons to automobiles.

An "orchestra" of five pieces was on hand, and the musicians took their places beneath a cluster of Chinese lanterns. There were fully a hundred on the floor at nine o'clock, when Mr. Harding and Mrs. Bishop led off in the grand march. I had secured Miss Harding as my partner, and LaHume and Miss Lawrence were behind us. Carter was with some village beauty, but I saw nothing of Wallace in the grand march.

Later he appeared and danced a waltz with Miss Ross, and they made a handsome couple. The "hired man" was as well dressed as any gentleman in the room, and I have never seen a more graceful dancer than that tall, young Scotchman. LaHume watched him like a hawk. When Wallace claimed Miss Lawrence for a schottische the glum LaHume stood by the door and looked as if he would rather fight than dance. Chilvers told him he was making an ass of himself.

It was a glorious night beneath the radiance of a full moon which silvered the lace-work of a mackerel sky. I never fully realised what dancing was until Miss Harding favoured me with a polka. And then we wandered out into the moonlight, talked about the moon, and hunted for the Great Dipper.

Even a plain woman looks pretty when with eyes and chin lifted she gazes at the star-studded heavens, her face profiled against the gleaming orb of a full moon, but no words of mine can describe the splendid beauty of Miss Harding in that attitude. I tried to think of something to say, but was under a spell and could think of nothing, and it was perhaps just as well. I composed some ripping good sentences before I went to sleep that night, but it was too late to use them, and I shall not record them here.

And then we met Wallace and Miss Lawrence, her arm drawn through his, her face lifted toward his, and her tongue going when she was not laughing. They were "walking out" a dance, and evidently enjoying it.

Mr. Harding had the time of his life. He danced with stout farm wives, slender village maidens, and executed a clog dance which made the barn shudder on its foundations. He led the singing, told stories to groups of farmers who shouted with laughter, and refused to go home until Mrs. Harding took him by the arm and fairly dragged him away.

I walked home with Miss Harding.



ENTRY NO. XII

THE ST. ANDREWS SWING

A week has passed since I made the last entry in this diary, and a number of peculiar things have happened.

My brokers have brought an additional 10,000 shares of N.O. & G., which brings my speculative holdings to a total of 25,000 shares. They acquired the last block at an average price of 65, and the market closed to-night at 63. If I were to settle at this figure I would be loser to the amount of $150,000, not including the $23,000 lost on the first two thousand shares purchased, on which I have taken my losses. Counting commissions and interest I am about $175,000 to the bad, but am not in the least worried.

My brokers are now placing their orders through houses in other cities, and I am certain the extent of my operations is a secret beyond the slightest question.

The qualifying round for the "Harding Trophy" brought out the largest field of players in the history of our club competitions. Of course most of those who started declared that they had no expectation of winning, or even of qualifying in the first sixteen. For instance, there was Peabody, whose best medal score is 112.

"Are you going to play for that bronze gent?" demanded Chilvers, as Peabody came to the first tee.

"Thought I might just as well enter," said Peabody. "Of course I know I haven't a chance in the world to win."

"You never can tell," said Chilvers, his face solemn as an owl. Chilvers is a merciless "kidder."

"That's right," admitted Peabody.

"If you play the way I saw you doing the other day, there's not a man in the club has anything on you," asserted Chilvers, winking at me.

"Stranger things have happened," declared Peabody, his face illuminated by a hopeful grin. "I made the last hole yesterday in five, and that is as good as Carter or Smith have done it in this year."

Now, as a matter of fact, there was not one chance in five hundred that Peabody would qualify, and he didn't, but that did not prevent his starting out with a hope and a sort of a faith that by some bewildering combination of circumstances he would qualify, and later on bowl over all of his competitors and carry off the prize with the sweeter honours of victory.