John Henry Smith Part 31

"I should imagine that would be the most difficult time to play such a role," Miss Harding said. "We know those who cannot be gentlemen even under the most encouraging circ.u.mstances. The greatest happiness which can come to a good woman is to marry the man she loves, and if she allows wealth, position or any other selfish consideration to stand in the way she does not deserve happiness."

"Right you are!" I declared with an enthusiasm which may have betrayed me. "I agree with every word you have said."

"See those perfect yellows against that bar of vivid red," she said, pointing to the west, where the sky quivered with a naming sunset. "See how the light flashes from the windows of the club house! One would think it filled with molten metal. How sharp the old church belfry shows against that ma.s.s of golden cloud to the northwest!"

We watched this glorious scene in silence until the upper rim of the sun sank beneath the rounded crest of "Old Baldy." Then I helped her down and we walked slowly back to the club house.

Have I not the right to a.s.sume that Miss Harding "likes me well enough to encourage my attentions," which is her definition of a flirtation? I believe I have. I know that other young gentlemen belonging to the club have attempted in vain to compete with me for the favour of her society.

All have failed--Carter alone excepted. But recently I have been with her more than has Carter. In fact I fear him less at the present moment than I have at any time. I shall soon know my fate.

For the first time the strain of my stock operations is telling on me. I have now purchased 35,000 shares of N.O. & G., and the market for it closed to-night at 60. If I were forced to settle at this figure I would be about $345,000 loser. If the stock is valueless, as some of the experts are now declaring, I am liable for nearly $2,000,000 more.

I have converted everything except my equity in Woodvale into money, and counting the margins in the hands of my brokers I find that I have nearly $3,000,000. I suppose I could get out with a loss of half a million, and there are moments when my cowardice struggles against me and when I am tempted to abandon this hazardous enterprise.

I shall stick it out, however. I know the conspiracy which has been hatched, and I do not believe they will dare force the price down much lower. I am going to buy another block of ten thousand shares if it continues to decline, and then await developments. If it goes to zero I shall still have a little money left, and I shall have the income from the old farm--but I shall not have the hardihood to ask for the hand of Grace Harding.

You may talk as much as you please but money is a commanding factor in love and marriage. It is all very well for a wealthy man to fall in love and marry a poor girl, but it is an entirely different thing for a poor man to aspire to the hand and heart of a wealthy woman.

Honestly, I don't believe it right that women should be permitted under the law to inherit vast sums of money--at least marriageable women. No man of ordinary means who possesses a proper self-respect will espouse a woman whose income overshadows his own.

I would limit the inheritances of marriageable women to a maximum amount of $100,000. I wish Miss Harding did not have a dollar.

The contest for the Harding Trophy--I mean the bronze, and not the real Harding Trophy--has narrowed down to four of us, Carter, Boyd, Marshall and myself. I have a sort of a premonition that as that 'bronze gent'

goes, so will go everything which I hold dear. I am making the fight of my life for it. I play Marshall to-morrow morning.

ENTRY NO. XVIII

MR. HARDING'S STRUGGLE

I won my match with Marshall after a contest which went to the twentieth hole. He had me dormie one coming to the eighteenth, but by perfect playing I won it in a five and halved the match. Nothing happened on the first extra hole, but on the following I held a fifteen putt for a three and won a beautifully contested match.

Miss Harding went around with us and was my Mascot. I broke my record for the course, making a medal score of seventy-eight. Miss Harding congratulated me and I was so happy I could have yelled. Dear old Marshall did not take his defeat the least to heart, but he is not playing for the stakes that I am.

I have dreamed twice that if I won the Harding Trophy I should win everything.

Carter beat Boyd handily, and the prize will go to one of us. I must beat him; I shall beat him!

After having declared innumerable times that he would master the secrets of golf without aid from anyone, Harding finally surrendered and took his first lesson this afternoon.

"I take back everything I ever said about this being an easy game to play," he said. "I'm a pretty good 'rule of thumb' civil and mechanical engineer, I know a few things about the laws of resistances and all that sort of thing, I have watched you fellows. .h.i.t that ball and have tried to imitate you, but it's no use. Now I'm going to do just what Wallace tells me, and if he can teach me to drive I'll pay him more than any professional ever made in the history of the game."

Harding certainly has had a time of it. For weeks he has laboured with a patience worthy of better results, he has purchased every known variety and weight of club. He has a larger collection of drivers, bra.s.sies, cleeks, mas.h.i.+es, midirons, jiggers, niblicks, putters and other tools than Billy Moon, and Moon is a specialist in that direction.

The surrounding woods, the ponds, brooks and swamps contain unnumbered b.a.l.l.s which Harding has misdriven. He will not waste one minute looking for a ball which gets into difficulty, and since his arrival our orders to the manufacturers have more than doubled.

One of his ambitions has been to drive a ball across the old mill pond.

It is a long carry and beyond probability that he can accomplish it, but I have seen him drive box after box of b.a.l.l.s and give them to the caddies who have recovered them.

Wallace was on hand at the appointed time to give Harding his first lesson, and we had quite a gallery for our foursome, including Miss Harding and Miss Lawrence. Wallace was to play with Harding against Carter and me, but the chief interest centred in whether Wallace could effect any improvement in the playing of his ponderous pupil.

He told Harding to make several practise swings Harding did so and Wallace studied them closely.

"A man of your build should play with the left foot advanced," he said.

"Bend the left knee but keep the other one more nearly rigid. Keep the weight of your body on your heels or you will fall on your ball when you swing through. Do not curve your back like a letter C. Keep the backbone straight but not rigid. It is the pivot on which your body and shoulders must turn, and how can it turn true if your vertebrae is bent?"

"I had not thought of that," admitted Harding, making a much better stroke.

"Unless the back is straight the right shoulder will drop, and that is fatal," cautioned Wallace. "Grip firmly and evenly with the fingers--not the palms--of both hands, but let the wrists be flexible until the club-head comes to the ball."

Wallace corrected other errors, and after fifteen minutes of instruction Harding teed a ball and for the first time in his life cleared the lane.

He was as delighted as a boy who unexpectedly comes into possession of his first gun.

"Wallace," he declared, "if you will stick to me until I get so I can do that well half of the time I'll give you a hundred shares of the L.M. & K. and a job which beats this one all hollow."

"I think you will be able to do even better than that," said Wallace confidently.

As the game progressed Harding's play steadily improved and his face took on an expression of supreme satisfaction delightful to contemplate.

His crowning triumph came on the thirteenth hole, in which he drove the green and found his ball laying within a foot of the cup, from which distance he easily negotiated a two which won the hole, and, as it subsequently developed, the match, Wallace holding the best ball of Carter and myself even.

Harding made the round in 106, which is ten strokes better than any of his previous records. He tried in vain to induce Wallace to take some large sum of money, but this strange young Scotchman positively refused to accept more than the regular rate for a lesson.

LaHume left, bag and baggage, early this morning, and I doubt if Woodvale will see him again. His members.h.i.+p is for sale, and at a special meeting of the board his resignation was accepted. He seems to have been the villain of this diary, but really he is not a bad sort of fellow, save for a strain of tactless selfishness. I presume that his good looks eventually will win for him some unfortunate heiress.

Had he remained here until this evening he would have been treated to another surprise. Wallace took Miss Lawrence's high-powered automobile from the garage, and, after a preliminary run of several miles in which to become familiar with certain new devices, swung it around the club house and up to the landing steps with the easy skill in which he handles a mas.h.i.+e.

As Bishop says, he certainly is "a most remarkable hired man."

Miss Lawrence, Miss Ross and Miss Dangerfield soon appeared and, with Wallace, started on a trip which was to include a call at Bishops, and later a spin down the old post road and back by some circuitous route.

It is only a week from to-day until the meeting of the directors of the N.O. & G. I shall then know whether I am to be comparatively a financial nonent.i.ty or a man of affairs. And then I shall know something of vastly more importance!

ENTRY NO. XIX

THE TORNADO

Early Monday morning Mr. Harding took a train for Oak Cliff, where he had an appointment with Mr. Wilson. He made a remark to the effect that his mission pertained more to business than golf. Mr. Wilson is president of the bank through which the "Harding System" transacts most of its financial operations.

"You can do me a favour, if you will, Smith," he said. "I shall stay over night in Oak Cliff. We have visitors coming to Woodvale to-morrow evening, and I should be back here to dine with them by six o'clock.

There is no train from Oak Cliff within hours of that time, and it has occurred to me that the folks might come for me in the red machine. Of course the Kid thinks she can handle it, but I hate to trust her on so long and hilly a route. Could you come with them?"